That’s how Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 attendees on Saturday, gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”

Spencer has popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the movement he leads. Spencer has said his dream is “a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans,” and has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing.”

For most of the day, a parade of speakers discussed their ideology in relatively anodyne terms, putting a presentable face on their agenda. But after dinner, when most journalists had already departed, Spencer rose and delivered a speech to his followers dripping with anti-Semitism, and leaving no doubt as to what he actually seeks. He referred to the mainstream media as “Lügenpresse,” a term he said he was borrowing from “the original German”; the Nazis used the word to attack their critics in the press.

“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

The audience offered cheers, applause, and enthusiastic Nazi salutes.

For extra lulz keep in mind that Trump's appointed senior counselor is Steve Bannon, former CEO of alt-right Breitbart News. These people are his people. Even if he doesn't consider himself one of them, his job involved pandering to and producing propaganda for them.

There are few foreign policy topics quite as complicated as the relationship between India and Pakistan, South Asia’s nuclear-armed nemeses. Any world leader approaching the issue even obliquely must surely see the “Handle With Care” label from miles away, given the possibility of nuclear conflict.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, however, doesn’t seem to have read the memo, injecting a pronounced element of uncertainty about the position of the world’s only remaining superpower on this most complex of subjects in a call with the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Donald Trump spoke with Pakistan's Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif via phone Wednesday. According to a readout of the conversation from the Pakistani authorities, he apparently agreed to visit the country and said he was “ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems.” He reportedly added: “You are a terrific guy. You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way.”

The hilarity of his hyperbole aside, Trump’s intervention could have serious consequences for both regional and global stability.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meeting between Trump and Obama at the White House, and here’s the thing.Obama used to be a law professor. This is key.Law school is so, so different from college. In college, everyone expects there to be a “syllabus day,” kind of a grace period where they can show up and get the lay of the land, figure out the bare minimum that they can get away with, the TA gives everyone their office hours, there’s an introductory lecture, and everybody leaves a few minutes early to go take a nap or something. You do the bullshit assignments, you say something in class now and then to get your participation check mark, and figure out how badly you can do on the final and still pass. But see, in law school, all the methodologies you’ve spent the last 17 years operating under go out the window. Day one of law school is you being thrown into the deep end of the pool—you’ve had a homework assignment for two weeks now, and it’s to read the first 200 pages of your casebook. And now it’s you and the teacher (who is usually as smug as Alex Trebek) gauging and assessing what you managed to absorb while you skimmed through all those pages of reading so you could hurry up and get to the other 150 pages of reading for your next period class, in front of 50 people who are all smarter than you. And if you fuck up, or you didn’t do the reading, you are at the mercies of not just the professor, but the silent satisfied judgment of your peers. Law school is hard, and it will make you feel stupid and tongue-tied and like you don’t know anything and can’t form an argument—because you don’t, and you can’t. Everybody there has had a 4.0 since birth. Everybody there was the smartest kid in their class, and you’re all rabidly competing for a sliver of a chance at something down the road. It’s petty, and savage, fiercely entrenched in a culture of formalities and ceremony, and exactly like Washington DC. Yesterday when I was driving home, the NPR reporter talking about the Oval Office meeting mentioned that Trump had thought it was going to be a “getting to know you” type meeting, but that he was surprised when Obama stretched their talk out to 90 minutes before sending him along to the Capitol building where he met with congressional leaders for more lengthy meetings and stuff he didn’t want to do.And he hasn’t even gotten to the actual job yet. So think about that as we go into this. Trump walked into the Oval Office like a two-pump-chump freshman thinking it was syllabus day, and what he got was the first day of law school, and he hadn’t done the reading like everyone else had, and Professor Obama decided to put him in the hot seat. This was Obama’s chance for the most perfect revenge that would never be picked up on as revenge at all. He was gracious, polite—everything he needed to be for a peaceful transition and a good review from the press. And that would continue when the doors were closed, because that’s the key. Not a Come to Jesus meeting, oh no. If Obama were smart—and he is very smart—he would have treated Trump like an equal, and brought the discussion to a level that assumes far more of Trump than anyone has so far. Assumes that he’s an adult who’s been paying attention. Statistics, esoteric minutiae about the executive branch procedure, economic growth numbers, labor figures, domestic policies, countries Trump has never even heard of, shit that would never in a million years have been in Trump’s campaign soundbites or digestible summaries. No way to escape. No aides to remember any of it for him. Just the two of them. Because that’s what would strike a precise chill into Trump. The thundering realization that he’s woefully unprepared for the hard, boring, thankless reality of this, and Obama’s version of a smooth transition won’t and shouldn’t include remedial civics. That’s what I saw when they shook hands and Trump stared at the floor instead of looking back into Obama’s face. He’s just figured out how little he knows about any of this. And that should give you a small glow of satisfaction, because after those meetings, Trump definitely has the 1L Terror Shits. In January, the night sweats and insomnia will show up, but for these first few weeks—nothing but diarrhea and self-doubt.

My emphasis, it looks like a pretty dead on assessment of that first meeting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meeting between Trump and Obama at the White House, and here’s the thing.Obama used to be a law professor. This is key.Law school is so, so different from college. In college, everyone expects there to be a “syllabus day,” kind of a grace period where they can show up and get the lay of the land, figure out the bare minimum that they can get away with, the TA gives everyone their office hours, there’s an introductory lecture, and everybody leaves a few minutes early to go take a nap or something. You do the bullshit assignments, you say something in class now and then to get your participation check mark, and figure out how badly you can do on the final and still pass. But see, in law school, all the methodologies you’ve spent the last 17 years operating under go out the window. Day one of law school is you being thrown into the deep end of the pool—you’ve had a homework assignment for two weeks now, and it’s to read the first 200 pages of your casebook. And now it’s you and the teacher (who is usually as smug as Alex Trebek) gauging and assessing what you managed to absorb while you skimmed through all those pages of reading so you could hurry up and get to the other 150 pages of reading for your next period class, in front of 50 people who are all smarter than you. And if you fuck up, or you didn’t do the reading, you are at the mercies of not just the professor, but the silent satisfied judgment of your peers. Law school is hard, and it will make you feel stupid and tongue-tied and like you don’t know anything and can’t form an argument—because you don’t, and you can’t. Everybody there has had a 4.0 since birth. Everybody there was the smartest kid in their class, and you’re all rabidly competing for a sliver of a chance at something down the road. It’s petty, and savage, fiercely entrenched in a culture of formalities and ceremony, and exactly like Washington DC. Yesterday when I was driving home, the NPR reporter talking about the Oval Office meeting mentioned that Trump had thought it was going to be a “getting to know you” type meeting, but that he was surprised when Obama stretched their talk out to 90 minutes before sending him along to the Capitol building where he met with congressional leaders for more lengthy meetings and stuff he didn’t want to do.And he hasn’t even gotten to the actual job yet. So think about that as we go into this. Trump walked into the Oval Office like a two-pump-chump freshman thinking it was syllabus day, and what he got was the first day of law school, and he hadn’t done the reading like everyone else had, and Professor Obama decided to put him in the hot seat. This was Obama’s chance for the most perfect revenge that would never be picked up on as revenge at all. He was gracious, polite—everything he needed to be for a peaceful transition and a good review from the press. And that would continue when the doors were closed, because that’s the key. Not a Come to Jesus meeting, oh no. If Obama were smart—and he is very smart—he would have treated Trump like an equal, and brought the discussion to a level that assumes far more of Trump than anyone has so far. Assumes that he’s an adult who’s been paying attention. Statistics, esoteric minutiae about the executive branch procedure, economic growth numbers, labor figures, domestic policies, countries Trump has never even heard of, shit that would never in a million years have been in Trump’s campaign soundbites or digestible summaries. No way to escape. No aides to remember any of it for him. Just the two of them. Because that’s what would strike a precise chill into Trump. The thundering realization that he’s woefully unprepared for the hard, boring, thankless reality of this, and Obama’s version of a smooth transition won’t and shouldn’t include remedial civics. That’s what I saw when they shook hands and Trump stared at the floor instead of looking back into Obama’s face. He’s just figured out how little he knows about any of this. And that should give you a small glow of satisfaction, because after those meetings, Trump definitely has the 1L Terror Shits. In January, the night sweats and insomnia will show up, but for these first few weeks—nothing but diarrhea and self-doubt.

My emphasis, it looks like a pretty dead on assessment of that first meeting.

I haven't seen Trump smile since just before it became clear he was going to win.

I suspect he'll be forced to pay attention at some point. At the least the dreaded media is going to be attacking him on all fronts so he'll be paying attention to that, if nothing else. He already can't handle being the butt of SNL jokes and that's about as tame as it's going to get. 6 months in and he'll be trying to get rid of comedy directed at him in it's entirety. Probably using a "you MUST respect the dignity of the office" line.

I suspect he'll be forced to pay attention at some point. At the least the dreaded media is going to be attacking him on all fronts so he'll be paying attention to that, if nothing else. He already can't handle being the butt of SNL jokes and that's about as tame as it's going to get. 6 months in and he'll be trying to get rid of comedy directed at him in it's entirety. Probably using a "you MUST respect the dignity of the office" line.

Why would he do that when his responses to comedy about him allow him to completely dominate the news cycle with a single tweet?

I suspect he'll be forced to pay attention at some point. At the least the dreaded media is going to be attacking him on all fronts so he'll be paying attention to that, if nothing else. He already can't handle being the butt of SNL jokes and that's about as tame as it's going to get. 6 months in and he'll be trying to get rid of comedy directed at him in it's entirety. Probably using a "you MUST respect the dignity of the office" line.

“We certainly hope that Donald Trump would not reward a deceptive pro-amnesty lawmaker like Michael McCaul with a Cabinet position,” said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. “That would be very disappointing to all of us that believed his campaign promises to secure our borders and deport millions of illegal immigrants under current U.S. laws.”

Aww, poor baby. It often seems like Trump doesn't really have any specific plans, he's just going from one thing to the next, impulsively making choices and hating Alec Baldwin. However long Trump, or we all, last, it's going to be funny.

Last year, the New York Attorney General launched an investigation into whether Exxon withheld information about the risks of climate change. Both the SEC and NY AG are also probing Exxon's accounting methods, focusing on whether the company should have lowered the value of its oil and gas resources given the crash in energy prices.

Oh, shit. That was not the tango I meant. Will dig up relevant links but I was thinking of the luminous orange soft drink with the as campaign that involved people being slapped in the face.

It's a subtle but important difference.

Uh... you're going to have to eat it on re-engineering costs friend. I demand pentuple my initial costs and an extra fee amounting to 5.23% of the bill IN ADDITION for research into this other tango, given that I must judge a beverage by flavor to properly art with it as words.

See 46. Dodgy favours require dodgy paybacks. Will be fun to see if the senate confirms the entire shitshow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38336272

Quote

The White House has suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in a hacking operation aimed at interfering with the US election.Ben Rhodes, adviser to President Barack Obama, said that Mr Putin maintains tight control on government operations, which suggests that he was aware.White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest added that it was "pretty obvious" that Mr Putin was involved.

Quote

"Everything we know about how Russia operates and how Putin controls that government would suggest that, again, when you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government," Mr Rhodes said."And ultimately, Vladimir Putin is the official responsible for the actions of the Russian government."

Quote

The NBC report, which cited two unnamed senior officials, said the hacking campaign began as a "vendetta" against Mrs Clinton before becoming "an effort to show corruption in American politics and split off key American allies".

Those crazy democrats.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38325364

Quote

enior US Republican senator Lindsey Graham has said his campaign email account was hacked by Russians.Sen Graham also told CNN that he believed "the Russians" hacked into the Democratic National Committee, and accused them of trying to "destabilise democracy all over the world".

Quote

Sen Graham, a member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN that "we were told by the FBI in August that we were hacked in June"."I do believe the Russians hacked into the [DNC]. I do believe they hacked into [John] Podesta's email account. They hacked into my campaign account," he said.He also said that he believed that "all the information released publicly hurt Clinton and didn't hurt Trump."

It seems reasonable to assume that who-ever did this also has access to any/all trump accounts. He just doesn't strike you as the kind of guy with secure passwords, does he? So the question for me is what's kicking around in there? Surely more than enough to keep him compliant if he isn't on friendly terms with Russia. The other interesting question is what docs do US intel agencies hold on trump? Again, I'm betting more than enough to keep him compliant. That, or we'll see some hilarious leaks.

On a lighter note, here's the simplified version of future foreign and domestic policy, trump appears around the ten second mark in case you miss him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV8zGNe7Ebg

Just re-watching "the producers". Just wanted to note that "Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the nazi party" should have been an election slogan this year. I'm somewhat surprised it wasn't.

The whole election was like some kind of post-modern reimagining of The Producers where the play-within-a-play (Springtime For Hitler being here represented by Republican fascism) bled into the frame story (corresponding to Hillary's "pied piper" gambit)

Obviously the best time to get up to any international chicanery will be this weekend. America's ambassadors and other top officials are being made to quit as soon as Trump is sworn in as President, and there will be no direction from the White House either.

Obviously the best time to get up to any international chicanery will be this weekend. America's ambassadors and other top officials are being made to quit as soon as Trump is sworn in as President, and there will be no direction from the White House either.

Don't start celebrating yet. We currently have some unelected idiot running around in a tartan clown costume explaining to everyone how leaving the european union and staying in it are the same thing. :lulz:

Don't start celebrating yet. We currently have some unelected idiot running around in a tartan clown costume explaining to everyone how leaving the european union and staying in it are the same thing. :lulz:

Well lets be fair here, they're acting as stenographers for the intelligence services in this case.

That said, some specialist scholars on North Korea and the South Korean intelligence services have been saying the same thing for a couple of weeks now, that Pyongyang is gearing up for another display of military and engineering ineptitude prowess.

I keep thinking "the media has to grow a spine and start fucking them back", but then I remember who owns the media.

Yeah. The whole point of the Fourth Estate being the pillar of democracy is that it has to be, yanno, Free. When it starts to become the mouthpiece of a couple of fascist billionaires all bets are off.

I keep thinking "the media has to grow a spine and start fucking them back", but then I remember who owns the media.

Yeah, that's a huge part of the problem. There are good reasons why people don't trust the media, so instead they've just started believing any stream of noise that fits their preferred worldview. Actual journalism has been more or less replaced by facebook memes.

I keep thinking "the media has to grow a spine and start fucking them back", but then I remember who owns the media.

Yeah, that's a huge part of the problem. There are good reasons why people don't trust the media, so instead they've just started believing any stream of noise that fits their preferred worldview. Actual journalism has been more or less replaced by facebook memes.

Interesting observation but not a well formed point and it is certainly one that needs addressing atm. My 2 penceworth - The media can only ever be as good as the quality of its reading public. And if that sounds elitist well sue me. What it looks like to me (and is implied in your post) is that people are so thin skinned that they can't accept any "truth" that doesn't fit their pre-conceptions. As a result they are searching through any dustbin or dark alley for the right flavour of truth, one that smells right to them.

Oh and just an FYI. Stuff from the NYTimes is behind a paywall so a brief highlight or two would be handy, if possible.

Thanks. I didn't bother clicking the NYT link 'cos I've already had my 6 free articles for this month. I hadn't bothered to watch the Spicerclasm but wow just Wow. Where did they drag that guy up from? Mind you if someone gave me a script full of lies and BS and pushed me out in front of the Washington media I think I might babble and stumble over my words a bit too.I hope this isn't paywalled but this is a Guardian take on it. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/22/sean-spicer-inauguration-groucho-marxist-asking-us-not-believe-our-own-eyes

I keep thinking "the media has to grow a spine and start fucking them back", but then I remember who owns the media.

Yeah, that's a huge part of the problem. There are good reasons why people don't trust the media, so instead they've just started believing any stream of noise that fits their preferred worldview. Actual journalism has been more or less replaced by facebook memes.

It's looking more and more like the 19th century. http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2016/017497/news-evolution

Trump may like to brag about mastering the art of the deal (which he didn’t write), but the emoluments clause of the Constitution is not negotiable.

“A president is not permitted to receive cash and other benefits from foreign governments,” Norman Eisen, former special counsel on ethics and government reform to President Barack Obama, said on NPR Thursday. “And yet, Donald Trump is getting a steady flow of them around the world and right here in the United States.”

In case you think Eisen is speaking from some dastardly liberal bias, the former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, Richard Painter, has the same opinion. “The president needs to focus on protecting the United States and American interests in a very dangerous world,” Painter said. “I really hope that President Trump takes the steps he needs to, to be free of conflict of interest in that endeavor.”

Well, depends on how quickly the Republicans pass their agenda, or how big the backlash is.

Current theory is that the Republicans are going to use Trump to pass most of their most wanted agenda, then let him implode and kick him to the curb so that President Pence's much safer (and larger) hands are on the steering wheel. Maybe the Democrats would do it in 2018 if they retook the House and Senate...but that's going to take a lot of work, and I think they're also worried about any impeachment process which doesn't also snag Pence. They may be playing wait and see with the intelligence service's investigations into the Russia links of Trump's campaign...if they can implicate Pence in that too, then I think it may happen.

Of course, you'll notice neither of these options involve people actually enforcing the law on the books as they should, only when it's politically expedient for them.

Well, depends on how quickly the Republicans pass their agenda, or how big the backlash is.

Current theory is that the Republicans are going to use Trump to pass most of their most wanted agenda, then let him implode and kick him to the curb so that President Pence's much safer (and larger) hands are on the steering wheel. Maybe the Democrats would do it in 2018 if they retook the House and Senate...but that's going to take a lot of work, and I think they're also worried about any impeachment process which doesn't also snag Pence. They may be playing wait and see with the intelligence service's investigations into the Russia links of Trump's campaign...if they can implicate Pence in that too, then I think it may happen.

Of course, you'll notice neither of these options involve people actually enforcing the law on the books as they should, only when it's politically expedient for them.

If nothing else, the next 6-18 months are going to make it very clear where everyone's alleigances lie. Trump doesn't have a power base and hasn't played the game...he's dead meat and he doesn't even know it.

If nothing else, the next 6-18 months are going to make it very clear where everyone's alleigances lie. Trump doesn't have a power base and hasn't played the game...he's dead meat and he doesn't even know it.

If nothing else, the next 6-18 months are going to make it very clear where everyone's alleigances lie. Trump doesn't have a power base and hasn't played the game...he's dead meat and he doesn't even know it.

I think it'd be worth all this just to see Trump get ousted and humiliated. Ryan's rough, but it seems like he's the type that's easier to counter because he has a plan and certain interests. Trump really only has his own interests and is too unpredictable to counter, clearly.

If nothing else, the next 6-18 months are going to make it very clear where everyone's alleigances lie. Trump doesn't have a power base and hasn't played the game...he's dead meat and he doesn't even know it.

I think it'd be worth all this just to see Trump get ousted and humiliated. Ryan's rough, but it seems like he's the type that's easier to counter because he has a plan and certain interests. Trump really only has his own interests and is too unpredictable to counter, clearly.

If we can get the damn voters off their asses, we can re-take Congress in 2018, and even if Ryan ends up in office we'll be able to lame duck him until 2020. Problem is, there's a good long stretch before 2018. Well, and the other problem is that an awful lot of voters seem to have no idea how politics work or why midterm elections are important.

My gut feeling is Trump and the GOP are just going to keep fucking Democrats up, the rest of us will suffer for it. I have no idea what nixing the TPP was supposed to do, but it damn well is going to pull in leftists into thinking, "Well, shucks, let's make the best of this thing."

Trumpster froze all environmental regulation changes in the works, which means that even though we'd like to ##-elided-## because environmental conditions are more favorable this year, we can't. This scenario is playing out at agencies all over the country.

Sad trombone.

EDIT: Turns out that was not yet public knowledge. If you read it, please forget it. I left the dots intact, I'm just not allowed to connect them for you.

My knowledge of USA politics is mostly gleaned from TV and movies, but I seem to recall people saying the presidency is mostly a figurehead position and doesn't have tons of power. Please someone tell me that's true.

My knowledge of USA politics is mostly gleaned from TV and movies, but I seem to recall people saying the presidency is mostly a figurehead position and doesn't have tons of power. Please someone tell me that's true.

Please?

That was the intention behind the office. It wasn't until Andrew Jackson came alone and decided this final check in the system of government needed to Also be the masthead for what it means to be American. He turned it from a clerical and military position to that of an interchangeable secular monarchist, more or less, IMO.

And now, with the executive powers established during the Bush era, and even though they decried executive power abuses by Obama who didn't invent them but made good use, Trump now has the ability to make very serious and consequential decisions.

For example, the executive order that will prevent funding to any organization that even uses the word "abortion" OR pushing the Dakota Pipeline through.

My knowledge of USA politics is mostly gleaned from TV and movies, but I seem to recall people saying the presidency is mostly a figurehead position and doesn't have tons of power. Please someone tell me that's true.

Please?

Sadly, not anymore. Let me give you a sense of what we're dealing with; what Nixon was impeached for isn't even illegal anymore.

My knowledge of USA politics is mostly gleaned from TV and movies, but I seem to recall people saying the presidency is mostly a figurehead position and doesn't have tons of power. Please someone tell me that's true.

Please?

That was the intention behind the office. It wasn't until Andrew Jackson came alone and decided this final check in the system of government needed to Also be the masthead for what it means to be American.

And now, with the executive powers established during the Bush era, and even though they decried executive power abuses by Obama who didn't invent them but made good use, Trump now has the ability to make very serious and consequential decisions.

For example, the executive order that will prevent funding to any organization that even uses the word "abortion" OR pushing the Dakota Pipeline through.

Andrew Jackson, America's racist golden boy. What poetry there is that he opened the door for so many of Trump's upcoming abuses!

My knowledge of USA politics is mostly gleaned from TV and movies, but I seem to recall people saying the presidency is mostly a figurehead position and doesn't have tons of power. Please someone tell me that's true.

Please?

He doesn't, not really. At least not in this case. However, he is the puppet of Ryan & Co, and the office of the president has ceased to exist aside from being a rubber stamp for everything Ryan and McConnell ever fapped about.

Instead of thinking of an out of control president, think of an evil congress with no brakes.

For those who want a link https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/cia-detainee-prisons.html

Quote

The Trump administration is preparing a sweeping executive order that would clear the way for the C.I.A. to reopen overseas “black site” prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Barack Obama shut them down.

President Trump’s three-page draft order, titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” and obtained by The New York Times, would also undo many of the other restrictions on handling detainees that Mr. Obama put in place in response to policies of the George W. Bush administration.

If Mr. Trump signs the draft order, he would also revoke Mr. Obama’s directive to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees in American custody. That would be another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions, although statutory obstacles would remain.

The attempts to make protest illegal and investigation into so-called voter fraud, while worrying on their own, are all about voter suppression. The GOP is demographically fucked. I know it, you know it, they know it, even Trump (probably knows it). White men and the rich are not a winning coalition in a multicultural state with vast wealth disparities.

However, you slap everyone determined to go against you with felony charges, then rig the system to "prevent voter fraud", you can wipe out huge chunks of opposing votes. That's what this is about.

The attempts to make protest illegal and investigation into so-called voter fraud, while worrying on their own, are all about voter suppression. The GOP is demographically fucked. I know it, you know it, they know it, even Trump (probably knows it). White men and the rich are not a winning coalition in a multicultural state with vast wealth disparities.

However, you slap everyone determined to go against you with felony charges, then rig the system to "prevent voter fraud", you can wipe out huge chunks of opposing votes. That's what this is about.

Right. If protesting is taken away or severely punished, the only method of action left is the vote. By the time 2018 rolls around, will left votes matter? My guess would be no.

Extreme gerrymandering since 2010 helped to make sure they didn't matter this time around. I think the aim is to now ensure that the vote disparity isn't so big...losing by over 3 million votes and still getting the Presidency is a bad look. It raises questions about democratic legitimacy (the EIU yesterday downgraded the USA to a "flawed democracy"). If I'm correct, we will see the disparity drop in 2020, assuming Trump lasts that long, but in terms of absolute numbers Trump won't be winning any more people over.

“There’s a lot of states that we didn’t compete in where that’s not necessarily the case,” he said. You look at California and New York, I’m not sure that those statements were—we didn’t look at those two states in particular … I think when you look at where a lot of places where a lot of these issues could have occurred in bigger states, that’s where I think we’re going to look.”

Here’s a shorter way to put that: Spicer is saying that Trump will target only states that voted Democratic for his investigation of fraud.

As my colleague Emma Green laid out yesterday in detail, there’s simply no basis for the claim of massive fraud. Activists who push the claim like to say that the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but repeated investigations, over the course of years, have failed to produce any proof. When the George W. Bush administration spent five years looking for fraud in the 2000s, they came back with effectively nothing. This makes progressives look at warnings about voter fraud as just a pretext for voter suppression: Once the public is made to believe there’s widespread fraud, it will support strict voting laws that require photo ID to vote, restrict early voting, and more. Those laws happen to disproportionately affect minorities, students, the poor, and other demographics that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

“There’s a lot of states that we didn’t compete in where that’s not necessarily the case,” he said. You look at California and New York, I’m not sure that those statements were—we didn’t look at those two states in particular … I think when you look at where a lot of places where a lot of these issues could have occurred in bigger states, that’s where I think we’re going to look.”

Here’s a shorter way to put that: Spicer is saying that Trump will target only states that voted Democratic for his investigation of fraud.

As my colleague Emma Green laid out yesterday in detail, there’s simply no basis for the claim of massive fraud. Activists who push the claim like to say that the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but repeated investigations, over the course of years, have failed to produce any proof. When the George W. Bush administration spent five years looking for fraud in the 2000s, they came back with effectively nothing. This makes progressives look at warnings about voter fraud as just a pretext for voter suppression: Once the public is made to believe there’s widespread fraud, it will support strict voting laws that require photo ID to vote, restrict early voting, and more. Those laws happen to disproportionately affect minorities, students, the poor, and other demographics that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

This, on a smaller scale, is what got Trump into office. Well, that and the Shillary criminal emails exactly the same as Trump monkeyscreeching.

This is interesting because it shows:1. An executive order can be wholly stupid and impractical and just sort of peter out. 2. This one doesn't exactly do what the label might have you believe.

Quote

“I’m curious to see exactly what he does in terms of this defunding of sanctuary cities because it doesn’t make sense from a legal standpoint or a political standpoint,” Torrey said.

It seems more for show than anything else.

As for the wall, I find it incredibly hard to imagine the GOP passing $15+ billion dollar legislation. Even with the most ardent, fervent right-wing whako base, this party must balk at such a huge price tag.

This is interesting because it shows:1. An executive order can be wholly stupid and impractical and just sort of peter out. 2. This one doesn't exactly do what the label might have you believe.

Quote

“I’m curious to see exactly what he does in terms of this defunding of sanctuary cities because it doesn’t make sense from a legal standpoint or a political standpoint,” Torrey said.

It seems more for show than anything else.

As for the wall, I find it incredibly hard to imagine the GOP passing $15+ billion dollar legislation. Even with the most ardent, fervent right-wing whako base, this party must balk at such a huge price tag.

Washington (CNN)Two senior administration officials said Thursday that the Trump administration told four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house" at Foggy Bottom.

Patrick Kennedy, who served for nine years as the undersecretary for management, Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Joyce Anne Barr, and Ambassador Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions, were sent letters by the White House that their service was no longer required, the sources told CNN.

All four, career officers serving in positions appointed by the President, submitted letters of resignation per tradition at the beginning of a new administration.The letters from the White House said that their resignations were accepted and they were thanked for their service.

The White House usually asks career officials in such positions to stay on for a few months until their successors are confirmed.

"Any implication that that these four people quit is wrong," one senior State Department official said. "These people are loyal to the secretary, the President and to the State Department. There is just not any attempt here to dis the President. People are not quitting and running away in disgust. This is the White House cleaning house."

So, Trump has said he is going to get America to pay for building the wall, and make Mexico reimburse it.

Mexico has said "lol no", and called off a meeting with Trump in protest.

Trump has said today that he will pass a 20% import tax on all Mexican goods to pay for the wall. Presumably, none of his advisers have explained to him how this is, yet again, making Americans pay for the wall.

Such a tax would most affect the price of agricultural goods, as Mexico is the United States’s second-largest supplier of such imports, mostly including fresh vegetables and fruits, wine and beer, snack foods, and other processed goods.

So, Trump has said he is going to get America to pay for building the wall, and make Mexico reimburse it.

Mexico has said "lol no", and called off a meeting with Trump in protest.

Trump has said today that he will pass a 20% import tax on all Mexican goods to pay for the wall. Presumably, none of his advisers have explained to him how this is, yet again, making Americans pay for the wall.

“Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they—get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing,” Bannon said of his detractors who criticized the far-right, white nationalist movement that Breitbart and others have successfully rebranded as the alt-right.

Shia himself has been regularly appearing in the live-feed, but not without controversy. Three days ago he got into a confrontation with a man wearing a Nazi hat. In response, Shia shouted "he will not divide us" at him, as the neo-Nazi tried to hijack the camera, whilst chanting white supremacist slogans. Following a second altercation with a man who shouted "Hitler did nothing wrong", Shia has now been arrested and charged with assault and harassment. The live-stream showed Shia pushing the man away, before grabbing him by the scarf. Later Shia was shown being handcuffed and led away by New York City cops.

If Shia, the Badlands National Park Service and Teen Vogue end up leading the Resistance, I'm fucking quitting this reality.

Shia himself has been regularly appearing in the live-feed, but not without controversy. Three days ago he got into a confrontation with a man wearing a Nazi hat. In response, Shia shouted "he will not divide us" at him, as the neo-Nazi tried to hijack the camera, whilst chanting white supremacist slogans. Following a second altercation with a man who shouted "Hitler did nothing wrong", Shia has now been arrested and charged with assault and harassment. The live-stream showed Shia pushing the man away, before grabbing him by the scarf. Later Shia was shown being handcuffed and led away by New York City cops.

If Shia, the Badlands National Park Service and Teen Vogue end up leading the Resistance, I'm fucking quitting this reality.

It has become more and more abundantly clear: we have been gravely underestimating Eris all this time. This is her fucking world; she just lets us live in it. For now.

If nothing else, the next 6-18 months are going to make it very clear where everyone's alleigances lie. Trump doesn't have a power base and hasn't played the game...he's dead meat and he doesn't even know it.

I think it'd be worth all this just to see Trump get ousted and humiliated. Ryan's rough, but it seems like he's the type that's easier to counter because he has a plan and certain interests. Trump really only has his own interests and is too unpredictable to counter, clearly.

If we can get the damn voters off their asses, we can re-take Congress in 2018, and even if Ryan ends up in office we'll be able to lame duck him until 2020. Problem is, there's a good long stretch before 2018. Well, and the other problem is that an awful lot of voters seem to have no idea how politics work or why midterm elections are important.

So, Trump has said he is going to get America to pay for building the wall, and make Mexico reimburse it.

Mexico has said "lol no", and called off a meeting with Trump in protest.

Trump has said today that he will pass a 20% import tax on all Mexican goods to pay for the wall. Presumably, none of his advisers have explained to him how this is, yet again, making Americans pay for the wall.

LOL, how does he think import taxes work? Does he think the country exporting the goods pays them?

So, who wants to know about Trump's source for the "3 million illegal votes thing"? Of course you do.

Today, Trump revealed his name was Gregg Phillips in a tweet. Gregg is the owner of "VoteStand", an app which allows people to report "suspected illegal voting activities as they happen". He claims that he has matched complaints made to him on election day with the US voter roll and found over 3 million irregularities - but he has refused thus far to show his work.

He also owed more than $100,000 in unpaid tax, associated with the Tea Party, has claimed that Israelis impersonated the Russians behind the DNC hacking, claimed that the Department of Health and Human Services under Obama “hacked” the election, compared Pelosi to Hitler and doesn't like Islam much.

Unconfirmed reports (but from a normally credible source (https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/825405243567513600)) that green card holders coming back into America from countries under the "Muslim ban" were handcuffed, had their social media reviewed and were asked their views on Trump.

It gets even worse http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-visa-ban-also-applies-to-citizens-with-dual-nationality-state-department-says-1485628654

Quote

It also applies to people who originally hail from those countries but are traveling on a passport issued by any other nation, the official said. That means Iraqis seeking to enter the U.S. on a British passport, for instance, will be barred, according to a U.S. official. British citizens don’t normally require a visa to enter the U.S.

“Travelers who have nationality or dual nationality of one of these countries will not be permitted for 90 days to enter the United States or be issued an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa,” a State Department official said. “Those nationals or dual nationals holding valid immigrant or nonimmigrant visas will not be permitted to enter the United States during this period. Visa interviews will generally not be scheduled for nationals of these countries during this period.”

The dual-citizenship ban doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens who are also citizens of the seven nations singled out by Mr. Trump.

I wonder how many Trump voters are finally starting to comprehend why so many people kept saying that supporting Trump is racist as fuck? I mean, I keep seeing all these regret posts about voting for the guy, and I'm like, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE PROMISED, DUMBASS. :horrormirth:

I wonder how many Trump voters are finally starting to comprehend why so many people kept saying that supporting Trump is racist as fuck? I mean, I keep seeing all these regret posts about voting for the guy, and I'm like, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE PROMISED, DUMBASS. :horrormirth:

Sadly I don't think a lot of them care Nigel. From over here it looks horribly as if that was actually the reason why a lot of people voted for him.

ALSO https://lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-trumps-horrifying-executive-order-refugees-and-visas an interesting piece from a far from bleeding heart liberal legal position highlighting the incompetence of the new administration.

Brings together CNN's outline of how the executive ordure actually happened and a broad ranging analysis of its legal shortcomingsalso including a copy of how the order describes its purpose:

Quote

the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

I wonder how many Trump voters are finally starting to comprehend why so many people kept saying that supporting Trump is racist as fuck? I mean, I keep seeing all these regret posts about voting for the guy, and I'm like, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE PROMISED, DUMBASS. :horrormirth:

To be fair, who would have expected Donald Trump of all people to be the kind of politician who keeps his promises?

I wonder how many Trump voters are finally starting to comprehend why so many people kept saying that supporting Trump is racist as fuck? I mean, I keep seeing all these regret posts about voting for the guy, and I'm like, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE PROMISED, DUMBASS. :horrormirth:

Sadly I don't think a lot of them care Nigel. From over here it looks horribly as if that was actually the reason why a lot of people voted for him.

Yes, that is why I specifically referred to the ones who are posting that they regret voting for him because now he is doing racist things, and apparently they weren't expecting that. This is what prompted me to wonder how many of his voters are currently having that wake-up moment, and why, exactly, they didn't see it coming.

Quote

ALSO https://lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-trumps-horrifying-executive-order-refugees-and-visas an interesting piece from a far from bleeding heart liberal legal position highlighting the incompetence of the new administration.

Brings together CNN's outline of how the executive ordure actually happened and a broad ranging analysis of its legal shortcomingsalso including a copy of how the order describes its purpose:

Quote

the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Its good to hear that some people are realising their error, Nigel. Interestingly our news media isn't carrying a lot of buyer's regret, yet, or if they are I'm not seeing it they are still focusing on Trump enthusiasts :horrormirth: - is the negative vibe coming from social media?

Its good to hear that some people are realising their error, Nigel. Interestingly our news media isn't carrying a lot of buyer's regret, yet, or if they are I'm not seeing it they are still focusing on Trump enthusiasts :horrormirth: - is the negative vibe coming from social media?

Yes, social media is where I have been seeing the regret posts I mentioned.

Just a quick aside :So after Theresa May's ghastly and embarrassing handholding party with the Cheat'oh a wave of British decorum has risen. She invited the clown prince back to her place for tea and crumpets. We can't ban his from the UK 'cos he is, after all, an elected head of a country whose ass we need to kiss but we are at least trying to spare Her Majesty's finer feelings.The petition launched this morning to ban The Donald from coming to the UK and bothering the Queen has passed 642,000665,181 677,072 679,388 692,146 signatures. [It went up while I was writing]. It only takes 100,000 for the petition to be considered for debate in the House.

Quote

PetitionPrevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.

May's initial refusal to condemn this will be remembered as her "Trump doesn't denounce the KKK" moment.

I was horrified to just find myself wondering if Michael Gove might have put on a better show of statesmanship and been less spineless than May. I also couldn't stop myself thinking that he might not have looked so good hand in hand with dRumpf

Day 1:Reads 16-minute inauguration speech he falsely claims to have written himself.In that speech, inadvertently quotes movie villain Bane from Batman.Announces the Alt-Right's theme of America First as policy and philosophy.Cites American 'carnage', without going into detail as to what that might entail.Falsely claims it stopped raining when he began to speak.Passes over long-time inauguration parade announcer Charlie Brotman, replacing him with no one.Six journalists are arrested while covering the inauguration and charged with felony rioting.Trump signs emergency order increasing mortgage costs for first time home buyers.

Day 2:Climate change data on White House website scrubbed.Trump calls National Park Service Director Michael T. Reynolds and orders him to produce photos showing a more crowded inauguration.He lies to the press about the size of the crowds at his inauguration, then complains when the press calls him on that lie.Gives speech at CIA headquarters. Brings along a claque of staffers unrelated to the CIA to cheer and clap at his words.Later claims he received the "greatest standing ovation since Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl."Protocol calls for government employees to remain standing until the president asks them to sitOutgoing CIA director, John Brennan, calls the CIA speech "a despicable display of self-aggrandizement."Claims to hold the all-time record of Time magazine covers at "14 or 15." He has been on 11 covers.Richard Nixon holds the actual record with 55 Time covers. Hillary Clinton has 22 covers.

Day 3:Spokesperson Conway announces Trump won't be releasing his tax returns regardless of the state of his IRS Audit.She claims that the people don't care about Trump's taxes.Conway also introduces the concept of lies as "alternative facts."

Day 4:Spanish language option on White House website scrubbed.Conway reverses herself and says that Trump will release his taxes once his IRS audit is complete.After lying about inauguration crowd sizes on Day 1, Press Secretary Spicer says "...our intention is never to lie to you."Spicer claims hiring freeze will halt "dramatic increase" in government employment.Number of federal employees at the beginning of Obama's terms, 2.77 million; towards the end, 2.66 million.Spicer declines to give the current unemployment rate when asked by a reporter.Trump bans aid to international health organizations, including the World Heath Organization, if they mention abortion.Claims he will cut all regulations on businesses by 75%, that the remaining 25% will be just as strong about protecting the people as before the cut.Claims to have "received many awards on the environment."The only award that can be verified is a Trump golf course that received one in 2007.In 2011 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection cited the same golf course for several environmental violations.At a meeting with lawmakers, Trump repeats the false claim that between 3 and 5 million illegal voters made him lose the popular vote.The initial evidence he cites is the anecdote of a 59-year-old golf pro and German citizen, Bernhard Langer, who Trump claims saw a lot of Latin faces in a polling line in Florida.Reporters reached the golf pro's daughter on Langer's cell phone. She said "He is not a friend of President Trump's, and I don't know why he would talk about him."An attempt to sue Trump under the Constitution's Emoluments Clause begins.

Day 5:Retroactively declares his inauguration day, January 20, 2017, the National Day of Patriotic Devotion.Revives the Keystone XL and Dakota Access crude oil pipelines.The Badlands National Park Twitter account goes rogue and begins to tweet global warming stats and other scientific facts. It is shut down.A few other National Park accounts begin to follow suit out of solidarity.White house imposes a freeze on grants and contracts from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, prohibits employees from speaking to the press or on social media.Slaps a similar gag order on US Department of Agriculture scientists.Press Secretary Spicer says Trump's 306 electoral votes were the most won by a GOP president since Reagan.But after Reagan, George HW Bush won with 426 electoral votes.Spicer calls prospective Attorney General Sessions record on voting and civil rights "exemplary." Says Sessions "has fought very hard for voting rights, civil rights and on areas of minority rights."Sessions was considered to be too racist for a federal judgeship in the 1980's. As a US Attorney, Sessions prosecuted 3 black activists for hand delivering, rather than mailing a small number of absentee ballots.Sessions also called a fellow US Attorney "Boy."Spicer repeats Trump's lie regarding 3-5 million illegal votes during the election, citing non-existent "studies and evidence."A member of the House and a Senator introduce a bill that would prevent the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a congressional declaration of war.A short time after a Bill O'Reilly episode touching on Chicago gun violence airs on Fox, Trump threatens to send federal troops into Chicago.Chicago's murder rate in 2016 failed to put it in the top 10 US cities.

Day 6:Expands media and social media gag orders to include US Departments of Commerce, the Interior, Transportation and Health and Human services.Trump issues Draft Order designed to reopen CIA.-run "black site" prisons.These secret overseas prisons detained and tortured terrorism suspects for years, before being shut down by President Obama.Trump claims that intelligence officials have told him that torture "absolutely" works.George Orwell's classic book 1984 hits #6 on Amazon's bestseller list.Trump tweets that he will be asking for a "major investigation into VOTER FRAUD."When confronted on ABC with the fact that the Pew reporter he was citing regarding voter fraud said there was in fact no voter fraud, Trump claimed the Pew reporter was "groveling."Claims that two people were shot in Chicago during Obama's farewell speech. Police reported no shootings in Chicago on that day.In the same interview, says "We ended up winning by a massive amount, 306." In terms of electoral votes, Trump's win ranks 46th out of 58 elections.Says "They say I had the biggest crowd in the history of inaugural speeches." Estimates for crowds at Trump's speech are 80% below those of Barack Obama's in 2009.Says "We have spent as of one month ago 6 trillion dollars in the Middle East." From 2001 to 2014 the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan--the latter country is in South Asia--cost an estimated $1.6 trillion.Says "You had millions of people that now aren't insured anymore." Some 20 million people have gained health care coverage because of the Affordable Care Act.He signs directive to build border wall with Mexico, reiterates that Mexico will pay for it.The deepest channel of the Rio Grande river serves as the US-Mexico border for 1255 miles, longer than the distance from New York City to Orlando, FL.The river is known to change its course rather frequently.Signs another directive increasing detention centers and Border Patrol staff.Signs another directive that threatens to cut off federal funds to cities that don't actively and vigorously pursue illegal aliens.Another order cuts U.S. funding to the International Criminal Court by 40 percent. The U.S. currently gives zero funding to the International Criminal Court.Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club doubles membership fees.His hotel business reveals plans for a major US expansion.

Day 714 minutes after Fox News calls Chelsea Manning an ungrateful traitor who called Obama a weak leader, Trump tweets that Chelsea Manning is an ungrateful traitor who called Obama a weak leader.Entire US State Department senior management team resigns. All were career foreign service officers who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.Infowars, who reported that the murdered Sandy Hook 1st graders were paid actors hired by the anti-gun lobby, and that the Air Force is purposefully creating deadly tornadoes in the Midwest, is granted White House Press credentials.Trump tweets that Mexico should cancel the upcoming summit with the US if they don't want to pay for the wall.Enrique Pena Nieto, president of Mexico, our close ally, cancels his planned trip to Washington.Trump proposes a 20% tax on goods coming from Mexico. Sellers will increase their prices by 20%, which will be paid for by the US consumer.In Philadelphia Trump says that "the murder rate has been steadily -- I mean, just terribly increasing."Data provided by the Philadelphia Police Department shows a record downturn in violent crimes, with fewer occurring in 2016 than in every other year since 1979.Trump orders his new administration to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants.The idea is not new. The German newspaper Der Stürmer had a feature known as the "Letter Box", which encouraged the reporting of Jewish illegal acts in the 1930's and 40's."The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile," -Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's closest adviser.In an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump says that he doesn't consider waterboarding to be torture.In April of 2009, Hannity agreed to be waterboarded for charity, but has yet to follow through on the offer.Trump draft proposal will ban immigration and to the US from Muslim majority countries Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia.Muslim majority countries Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and the U.A.E. will not be on the banned list. These five countries are where Trump has business interests.

Day 8Trump signs ban on Muslims from the 7 countries from traveling into the US.Announces that persecuted Christians will be given priority over Muslim refugees.A screenshot is revived of Mike Pence's deleted December 2015 tweet stating "Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional."Dick Cheney says Muslim ban "goes against everything we stand for and believe in."By a margin of 42% to 39%, Trump voters believe that it would be okay for him to use his private email server for official business.George Orwell's 1984 hits #1 on Amazon's bestseller list.Trump tweets that he has another source for his oft-debunked claim of millions of illegal votes - Gregg Phillips, who has made claims that the Department of Homeland Security hacked the 2016 US election at Obama's request, and that Israel was the culprit for the DNC hacks.Three paragraph White House statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day makes no mention of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.White Supremacist publication the Daily Stormer praises Trump on this statement for daring to reject "Jewish science fiction" about the Holocaust.

Day 9Donald Trump calls Vladimir Putin from the White House.Steve Bannon, former publisher of radical right wing website Breitbart, is granted a regular seat at National Security Council meetings.Sample Breitbart headlines include Data: Young Muslims in the West Are a Ticking Time Bomb, and Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.In 2013, Bannon told a writer for the Daily Beast, "I'm a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that's my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down."The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will no longer have regular seats on the NSC.Some legal permanent US residents are being stopped from reentering as they return from visits or studies abroad.The Muslim ban will also keep Oscar-nominated director Asghar Farhadi from attending the Oscars.Referencing an article on how the ban will include green card residents, former KKK Grand Wizard and current racist icon David Duke tweets, "Greatest. Year. Ever."Protesters flood JFK International Terminal in New York, demanding that detainees there be allowed to go free.More protesters assemble at airports in Denver, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, LA, and Washington DC.Dozens of lawyers show up at various airports to work pro bono to free detainees there.New York judge issues a temporary injunction halting deportations nationwide from Trump's ban.Similar rulings follow in Virginia, Massachusetts and Washington State.

Day 10The US Department of Homeland Security says it will comply with judicial orders not to deport detained travelers affected by Trump's ban.The DHS reverses itself and announces it will defy the court orders, potentially provoking a constitutional crisis.According to White House sources, Top Trump policy director Stephen Miller tells government employees that the public is behind Trump's ban, and to ignore the hysterical voices on TV.While at Duke, Stephen Miller worked closely with White Nationalist Richard Spencer--the man who was recently punched in the face on air while explaining the Alt-Right, provoking debate amongst the Left as to whether or not it's okay to punch a Nazi.As chaos and protests continue at airports in the US and around the world, Trump tells reporters "It's not a Muslim ban. We were totally prepared. It's working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over. It's working out very nicely."Trump issues a statement saying, "To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,"Earlier in the day, Rudy Giuliani, adviser to Trump, told a reporter, "I'll tell you the whole history of it. When he first announced it, he said 'Muslim ban.' He called me up, he said 'put a commission together, show me the right way to do it, legally.' "A petition calling for Trump to be prevented from making a state visit to the United Kingdom picks up over 600,000 signatures, Once a petition passes the 500,000 threshold, the matter must then be debated in the UK Parliament.

Just a quick aside :So after Theresa May's ghastly and embarrassing handholding party with the Cheat'oh a wave of British decorum has risen. She invited the clown prince back to her place for tea and crumpets. We can't ban his from the UK 'cos he is, after all, an elected head of a country whose ass we need to kiss but we are at least trying to spare Her Majesty's finer feelings.The petition launched this morning to ban The Donald from coming to the UK and bothering the Queen has passed 642,000665,181 677,072 679,388 692,146 signatures. [It went up while I was writing]. It only takes 100,000 for the petition to be considered for debate in the House.

Quote

PetitionPrevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.

Now we need a petition to get England to impose sanctions. We need the EU to impose sanctions too, hit his business interests and hit the industries that supported him.

He wants to bring back the factories. I want the phrase "made in america" to completely disappear from the face of the earth, to be found no more at all.

Meanwhile, Tillerson basically paid to be made Sec State, according to some explosive claims circulating. They've not been written up, so no links yet, but Exxon allegedly funneled a significant amount of money to Trump shortly before Tillerson was picked for the role. Exxon, of course, are losing billions from sanctions on Russia, so...

I find the idea of Trump using Reality TV tropes for political ends to be more distressing than quite a few of the things he's done. That's a way to get people politically invested in you -- make yourself into a "character", add a dramatic soundtrack to government procedure, encourage dramatic emotional responses from the other "characters" in the production. That's terrifying. It makes him seem less real and endears him to people who aren't politically inclined. It will undoubtedly do precisely what it's supposed to do, too; reality TV has a lot of studying and focus group testing done to ensure ideal responses from the audience.

It's funny, at a distance. But it has a lot of potential for abuse, and Trump is precisely who would abuse it.

Meanwhile, Tillerson basically paid to be made Sec State, according to some explosive claims circulating. They've not been written up, so no links yet, but Exxon allegedly funneled a significant amount of money to Trump shortly before Tillerson was picked for the role. Exxon, of course, are losing billions from sanctions on Russia, so...

Gorsuch is hands-down his least vile nominee so far.

Not great -- I mean, the guy is rabidly against death with dignity, as well as having all the generally nasty baggage you can expect from a typical conservative, but he's not the absolute monstrosity Trump's other picks have been.

Meanwhile, Tillerson basically paid to be made Sec State, according to some explosive claims circulating. They've not been written up, so no links yet, but Exxon allegedly funneled a significant amount of money to Trump shortly before Tillerson was picked for the role. Exxon, of course, are losing billions from sanctions on Russia, so...

Gorsuch is hands-down his least vile nominee so far.

Not great -- I mean, the guy is rabidly against death with dignity, as well as having all the generally nasty baggage you can expect from a typical conservative, but he's not the absolute monstrosity Trump's other picks have been.

Such as, for example, Jerry Falwell Jr, who is leading a Federal task force on Higher Education?

Meanwhile, Tillerson basically paid to be made Sec State, according to some explosive claims circulating. They've not been written up, so no links yet, but Exxon allegedly funneled a significant amount of money to Trump shortly before Tillerson was picked for the role. Exxon, of course, are losing billions from sanctions on Russia, so...

Gorsuch is hands-down his least vile nominee so far.

Not great -- I mean, the guy is rabidly against death with dignity, as well as having all the generally nasty baggage you can expect from a typical conservative, but he's not the absolute monstrosity Trump's other picks have been.

Such as, for example, Jerry Falwell Jr, who is leading a Federal task force on Higher Education?

Meanwhile, Tillerson basically paid to be made Sec State, according to some explosive claims circulating. They've not been written up, so no links yet, but Exxon allegedly funneled a significant amount of money to Trump shortly before Tillerson was picked for the role. Exxon, of course, are losing billions from sanctions on Russia, so...

Gorsuch is hands-down his least vile nominee so far.

Not great -- I mean, the guy is rabidly against death with dignity, as well as having all the generally nasty baggage you can expect from a typical conservative, but he's not the absolute monstrosity Trump's other picks have been.

Burned bridges with Australia, threatened Mexico with sending in troops without their leave and appears to be threatening Iran with some kind of violence AND launched a botched counterterrorism raid last week in Yemen, which ended up killing an 8 year old girl and a Navy SEAL. And Bannon is brainstorming a South China Seas conflict.

On the domestic front, Trump has revealed plans to rebrand the "Countering Violent Extremism" program as "Countering Islamic Extremism". All references to far-right groups or attempts to counter far-right extremism have been dropped from the program.

Coincidentally, the FBI has been investigating the infiltration of the American far-right into local police forces. The infiltration is so bad that in some districts, the FBI refuses to share intelligence with local PDs for fear of compromising operations against the far-right.

Well I mean, this all seems to confirm everything everyone was saying about how a Hillary Presidency would be exactly the same as a Trump Presidency. I mean, sure is a good thing all those protest voters didn't waste their vote on her, because then, well, someone with a vagina would be President and we can't have that. :horrormirth:

Trump voters and republicans in general aren't going to be convinced by sense, but what about nonsense? Here are some nonsense concepts that we should get circulating

"The muslim ban doesn't go far enough. We need to ban Saudi Arabia too." (We're never going to convince them to do Saudi Arabia instead, but Saudi Arabia should be banned because if would screw up up Trump's business interests there and honestly while it would make the whole thing even more heavy handed than it already is it would also make it more sensible as that was where the 9/11 hijackers came from)

and conversely

"Trump left Saudi Arabia off the list because he knows that Bush did 9/11"

and also

"Trump is the antichrist/Putin is the antichrist/Trump and Putin are two of the heads of the beast. The signs are all there."

Just days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump stood beside his tax lawyer at a Midtown Manhattan news conference as she announced that he planned to place his vast business holdings in a trust, a move she said would allay fears that he might exploit the Oval Office for personal gain.

However, a number of questions were left unanswered — including who would ultimately benefit from the trust — raising concerns about just how meaningful the move was.

Now, records have emerged that show just how closely tied Mr. Trump remains to the empire he built.

A fascinating and scary article has been doing the rounds in recent days, which suggests that Donald Trump's ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries was an attempt to see how far he can push his power, as the first step to mounting an all-out coup.

A Google engineer named Yonatan Zunger has suggested that the way the White House has repeatedly gone around long standing conventions shows it is testing to see whether a coup is possible.

One man's coup is another man's "strong leadership". But what Zunger is talking about is Mr Trump's inner circle grabbing power in a similar way that Vladimir Putin has done in Russia, where he exercises power unchallenged by any other body.

Hey Cain, any truth in the "Iran selling oil to Japan using the yen" stuff as the real motivation for sanctions? Would seem to fit as Japan needs the import and the almighty petrodollar shall not be fucked with. Can't find a decent source for it though.

If this was a test for anything, on the international arena, it may have been a test to see how tight Iran and Russia are. Trump's people are pretty crazy about Iran, but Russia isn't going to drop Tehran as a partner any time soon. Balancing their pro-Russia approach with an anti-Iranian agenda is not going to be easy.

While I'm here...can anyone give me a reason that Trump is so pro-Russian that is not that "the Steel dossier is in substance true"? Referencing his statements the other day...he was willing to disparage American conduct, on FOX News, as a Republican President, rather than admit that Putin might be a scumbag.

I can't think of any non-blackmail reason as to why Trump would be so consistently and overtly deferential to one particular world leader.

While I'm here...can anyone give me a reason that Trump is so pro-Russian that is not that "the Steel dossier is in substance true"? Referencing his statements the other day...he was willing to disparage American conduct, on FOX News, as a Republican President, rather than admit that Putin might be a scumbag.

I can't think of any non-blackmail reason as to why Trump would be so consistently and overtly deferential to one particular world leader.

I think it's blackmail. However, another explanation is simply that he gets a lot of money from Russia and wants to keep it that way.

LMNO, I get what you're saying, but this is a man who rarely has a good thing to say about anyone, and whose own ego probably has a Secret Service protection detail.

Yet, when Putin comes up, he's as servile and craven as a whipped dog. Putin's style isn't that unique..Erdogan, Duterte, Orban and others also use it. And while he's friendly enough with those leaders, in the way you would expect due to his preference for their leadership style, he's not quite as asslicky as he is with Putin.

Eavenson brought up to Trump an unnamed senator who was discussing introducing legislation that would require a conviction before law enforcement could seize forfeiture money, joking that "the cartel would build a monument" to the senator in Mexico for passing said legislation.

“Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career,” Trump replied, according to Politico.

Leach, who has pushed for civil asset forfeiture reform in Pennsylvania, invited Trump to come after him as well.

"Hey! I oppose civil asset forfeiture too," Leach wrote on Facebook and Twitter. "Why don't you come after me you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon!!"

Eavenson brought up to Trump an unnamed senator who was discussing introducing legislation that would require a conviction before law enforcement could seize forfeiture money, joking that "the cartel would build a monument" to the senator in Mexico for passing said legislation.

“Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career,” Trump replied, according to Politico.

Leach, who has pushed for civil asset forfeiture reform in Pennsylvania, invited Trump to come after him as well.

"Hey! I oppose civil asset forfeiture too," Leach wrote on Facebook and Twitter. "Why don't you come after me you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon!!"

While I'm here...can anyone give me a reason that Trump is so pro-Russian that is not that "the Steel dossier is in substance true"? Referencing his statements the other day...he was willing to disparage American conduct, on FOX News, as a Republican President, rather than admit that Putin might be a scumbag.

I can't think of any non-blackmail reason as to why Trump would be so consistently and overtly deferential to one particular world leader.

What about bribery and/or collusion?

EDIT:Trump is the Saruman to Putin's Sauron (excepy, you know, not smart)

Sometimes it feels like its easier to assume Trump is being blackmailed because the alternative is so unpalatable. If Trump-kun is being blackmailed, there's an assumption that Trump is being such a shill against his will. I don't think that guy does anything against his will except refrain from banging his daughter.

If trump is as dumb as he makes out then he's being manipulated by smart and powerful people, just like all his predecessors before him, right back to the guy that was rifle-voted out of office for refusing to be manipulated. If he's not then he's a fucking genius actor doing the best full retard since Sean Penn and he's probably about to receive the rifle-vote or something equally media-compelling.

The only thing that's crystal clear to me is the US overwhelmingly voted a guy who can't talk coherently, because of mental impediment rather than speech, to be in charge of the country. Any sensible person in Putin's position right now (which Putin very is), would pretty much just asset-strip the entire landmass and sell the valuable stuff to the Chinese and anyone else who figured out years ago that this US petrodollar thing was on a shaky as fuck nail.

The CinC of the largest stockpile of all the fucking things on earth is slappy the clown and the narrative is that any decision this motherfucker makes is gospel. Personally I never bought that narrative. Struck me as the kind of story smart people would tell dumbfucks so they'd shut the fuck up and do what they were told but, just for sake of argument, let's say it's true. Holy shit, we better secure our borders against US refugees. It's going to look like the set of Mad Max there in a couple of years time. Personally, if I was a murrican and I could spell my own name, I'd be getting the fuck out while my passport still worked. :lulz:

Trump denounced arms-reduction treaty in Putin call: report Asked by Putin about the possibility of extending the treaty capping U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads— known as New START — Trump reportedly paused to ask his aides what the treaty was, two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official briefed on the call told Reuters.

He then told Putin it was one of a number of bad deals negotiated by former President Obama and that it favored Russia, before launching into conversation about his own popularity, according to the sources.

Those trying to divine the roots of Stephen K. Bannon’s dark and at times apocalyptic worldview have repeatedly combed over a speech that Mr. Bannon, President Trump’s ideological guru, made in 2014 to a Vatican conference, where he expounded on Islam, populism and capitalism.

But for all the examination of those remarks, a passing reference by Mr. Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola.

“The fact that Bannon even knows Evola is significant,” said Mark Sedgwick, a leading scholar of Traditionalists at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Evola, who died in 1974, wrote on everything from Eastern religions to the metaphysics of sex to alchemy. But he is best known as a leading proponent of Traditionalism, a worldview popular in far-right and alternative religious circles that believes progress and equality are poisonous illusions.Continue reading the main story

Evola became a darling of Italian Fascists, and Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s looked to him as a spiritual and intellectual godfather.

They called themselves Children of the Sun after Evola’s vision of a bourgeoisie-smashing new order that he called the Solar Civilization. Today, the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn includes his works on its suggested reading list, and the leader of Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, admires Evola and wrote an introduction to his works.

More important for the current American administration, Evola also caught on in the United States with leaders of the alt-right movement, which Mr. Bannon nurtured as the head of Breitbart News and then helped harness for Mr. Trump.

What Trump has is the unshakeable incompetence of a man whose performance feedback loop has been missing for a long time. No matter how smart you are, you cannot become competent without accurate feedback about what you do wrong. He has probably never had that feedback in his life. He strikes me as probably slightly above average intelligence, maybe an IQ of around 110 if I had to take a stab at it. He was a C average Economics student, and I doubt he put much work into achieving that much. He has probably been praised for his intelligence all his life, and has no idea that he is not brilliant.

I think we all know people like that. Break the feedback loop and pile on the praise, and what you get are hopelessly incompetent people who think they are brilliant unique talented superior snowflakes.

I'm not Cain, but I'm well aware of Evola and his "fans". I've read a book or two of his.

Basically Evola was a dyed-in-the-wool fascist, specifically a fan of the Italian form (strict fascism, so to speak). He had a belief that the occult (specifically esoteric traditions) was the reason the world was "better" back in the day, and that all culture stemmed from nationalistic impulses being acted on by "nations of heroes" in the form of warring nations, etc.

It was clear he knew some of what he was talking about, e.g. he obviously had read actual Buddhist and Hindu texts in their original languages, but that just made him more bizarre: he was convinced that war and "nations of heroes" were a common theme of all "successful" cultures and as "evidence" essentially conflated all variants of the Indo-European "dual pantheon, there is a war between one and the other, the newer weaker guys win" story as talking about a clash between a nation of powerful but corrupt and unheroic "foreigners" and weaker but honorable and heroic "settlers".

He was connected to Nazi theosophists and other groups that combined fascism and the occult, and until the day he died he espoused fascism as the One True Political System of the World. He wrote thousands of books on a wide variety of occult subjects. To this day you cannot actually learn very much about some classical esoteric systems (e.g. Hermeticism) without picking up an Evola book or a book written based on his hopelessly tainted work. So among occultists and people interested in that sort of thing, his views have slowly gained ground.

Now, I don't know much about his actual background or why he wasn't, say, killed in his sleep at the end of WW2... For that, you'd definitely need to ask Cain. But his philosophy is familiar enough to me that I can spot it at a distance -- the world has always seen conflict and the culture with a "nation of heroes" always wins, and this will always be the case. Martial worship, the myth of the divinely appointed leader, all the stuff that makes me want to stomp on Nazi heads.

Apologies if I stole your spotlight, Cain, I was also hoping that if I was wrong on any points you could correct me though.

The only thing I would add - which is mentioned in the article - is that Evola was very popular with the fascist terrorist groups that existed in the 1st Italian Republic. And with Aleksander Dugin, because why not.

Evola's fascism was sufficiently weird (spiritual racism + European Imperium) and aristocratic that the SS kept an eye on him at one point, and that point of distinction is what saved him after WWII, despite otherwise being a supporter of Mussolini.

He's pretty esoteric in both senses of the word, so that Bannon is aware of him is...disturbing. Of course, this does allow for hilarious juxtapositions with his stated position of defending "Judeo-Christian" civilization against the Great Islamic Menace as well as his collaboration with traditionalist factions within the Vatican.

Washington (CNN)For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump's inauguration.

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.

But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump.

The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement "greater confidence" in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say.

US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has resigned over allegations he discussed US sanctions with Russia before Donald Trump took office.Mr Flynn is said to have misled officials about his call with Russia's ambassador before his own appointment.It is illegal for private citizens to conduct US diplomacy.

At this point, it's probably worth asking which of the selected clowns are actually going to last the 4 years. I'm pretty sure that 50% won't make it to the 2 year mark. Expecting exceptionally wealthy people to act in the public interest is just silly at the best of times, so how long do you really need to stick in a post before you've made your mates some money? Surely you can get that shit done in less than a year and now they seriously owe you. Why stick around longer? You don't need the money and you certainly don't care about either the job or public perceptions.

You can just see some fun coming with the sackings/accepting resignations. Sooner or later (probably sooner) he's just going to sack someone. And then there will be a little road to Damascus moment for that particular cretin as they try and save face or mitigate the damage they've just done. Or just as a simple fuck you bit of revenge. I'm pretty sure that that's when the attacks on the media will really start up.

Seriously, this is bad for Trump. In addition to today's reports that the Trump election team had persistent ongoing contacts with individuals considered Russian intelligence assets, allegedly picked up during routine intelligence gathering on those assets, the question now is "what did the President know, and when did he know it?"

There's also the question of "who was Flynn working on the behalf of when he went to meet with the Russian ambassador?"

Meanwhile, Russia is getting increasingly nervous about Trump's irrationality and their percieved ownership of his stumbling. If I was a short-term thinker, like I suspect Putin is, and I was in Putin's position, I'd blow this whole thing up in a month or so. Instigate a constitutional crisis, while US agencies are still decapitated and reeling from a loss of experienced staff. Keep the executive branch so on the defensive and battling Senate investigations (you know McCain is gearing up for this already) that it has no cognitive bandwidth for anything else. Double down on the FN in France and fighting in the Donbass while you can and if you have to, blame the whole thing on rogue operatives and use it to purge your own radical right enemies in Russia.

I'm assuming a short-term crisis (maybe 18 months), with Russia making hay while the sun shines.

But after this election, who knows? It wouldn't take much to portray this as a deep state coup against an outsider President. Throw in The Donald throwing a tantrum and refusing to, say, stand down...I'm not going to say it, because I don't like throwing the term around lightly, and talking about potential political violence can lead to actual political violence, but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.

I don't think it's as likely as the first option, but it's something to keep in mind. It's also worth keeping in mind that Russia has an economy roughly the size of Portugal and is fighting in Ukraine and Syria. They likely cannot afford to make more trouble through overt means, not without risking economic collapse. So in their position, sticking to needling NATO through subversive hacks and attempt to obtain resolution on those two conflicts would be my aim. It would put me in a stronger position should there be negative fallout from the former (like the entire US establishment deciding Russia needs to be taught a lesson).

I don't buy the overall thesis, but if you want an overview of the people coalescing around Trump, this is a good guide.

Perhaps it's too much of simply stating the obvious, but I think that this sentence stands alone as a concise summary:

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Trump appears to be in conflict with the bulk of the US intelligence community, and is actively seeking to restructure the government to minimize checks and balances, and thus consolidate his executive power.

US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has resigned over allegations he discussed US sanctions with Russia before Donald Trump took office.Mr Flynn is said to have misled officials about his call with Russia's ambassador before his own appointment.It is illegal for private citizens to conduct US diplomacy.

At this point, it's probably worth asking which of the selected clowns are actually going to last the 4 years. I'm pretty sure that 50% won't make it to the 2 year mark. Expecting exceptionally wealthy people to act in the public interest is just silly at the best of times, so how long do you really need to stick in a post before you've made your mates some money? Surely you can get that shit done in less than a year and now they seriously owe you. Why stick around longer? You don't need the money and you certainly don't care about either the job or public perceptions.

You can just see some fun coming with the sackings/accepting resignations. Sooner or later (probably sooner) he's just going to sack someone. And then there will be a little road to Damascus moment for that particular cretin as they try and save face or mitigate the damage they've just done. Or just as a simple fuck you bit of revenge. I'm pretty sure that that's when the attacks on the media will really start up.

I think it might be Priebus. If Bannon takes him down, then Trump will be listening to Bannon, Miller (who is a mini-Bannon) and Jared Kushner. Unless Ivanka leaves Kushner for Justin Trudeau, there's no way to get rid of him, but it stacks the deck in Bannon's favour, and means the RNC will be more reliant on Bannon than ever.

Priebus is already being blamed by the far-right for the Flynn debacle (don't ask how that makes sense...probably something to do with J000000000s), so the scene is being set.

Incidentally, I called that Harwood would be the replacement National Security Advisor for Trump 24 hours before he announced it.

You want to know how? Easy, I just looked at who had the least negative opinions towards Russia out of the three potential candidates. And lo and behold, Harwood is that one (though to be fair, his thinking on this topic is less "Put1n is aWeSomE <33333" and more "we could use anti-ISIS operations as the starting point to better relations with Russia"). But in comparison to Kellog and Petraeus, that is a marked difference in opinion.

Just been looking at some of idiots (Lets just refer to trump as this, its more honest and easier to read) comments regarding Israel and the 1/2 state issue. Idiot clearly has no fucking clue here. "I like what both of them like". Assuming idiot is referring to bannon/miller. Because he can't possibly be talking about Israel or Palestine. Surely idiot isn't that stupid?

Anyone want to guess the start date of the next intifada? I reckon around June. It's practically guaranteed to come now. Betting a bowl of hummus idiots advisers use that as an excuse to push 1-state solution and royally screw over Palestinians. Again.

In other news psychiatrists have written an open letter with accusations of narcissistic personality disorder. I find this unfair. The problem isn't narcissism, its that idiot is irredeemably,hopelessly stupid and becoming the literal archetype for all things dunning-Kruger.

Do you believe that if Republicans were obstructing Obama like Democrats are doing to President Trump, the mainstream media would attack Republicans?

Words fail me

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Do you trust Fox News to report fairly on Trump's presidency?

"Tell us where to spend our advertising cash!" Same question on multiple other outlets.

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Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported President Trump's temporary restriction executive order?

No link provided to this poll. I can't find it with google either. Feel free to add post it if you know where/what it is, I bet the methodology is hilarious.

Of 25 questions, around 20 involve the questions starting like "do you believe"

It's like a poll of "How successful have we been in making you swallow our bullshit? Very or highly? Should we go much further, or way further?"

Before you waste your time having fun, name, email address and zip code are required to "record your vote". Presumably funny answers and accurate information here will identify illegal aliens and assist in deportations. However, I suspect like the rest of the administration it's horribly deficient so having a few hundred "Tiffany trump"'s/"Hilary Clinton"/"Alec Baldwin" at the white house/clinton foundation/SNL zip codes with an email of "fuckyou@glowinthedarkface.com" may just provoke the idiot. Just a thought. It's not like the results will be reported honestly in any event so provoking a twitter rant over misuse it is probably the best approach rather than letting it work as another echo chamber for the luminous cretin.

Smith then started to look into the camera and added, “Really? Your opposition was hacked, and the Russians were responsible for it, and your people were on the phone on the same day it was happening, and we are fools for asking those questions? No sir, we are not fools for asking those questions, and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people.”

Smith was defending CNN correspondent Jim Acosta.

*aside to 4th wall here on your computer screen*

You better believe it folks! This is a FOX NEWS ANCHOR that just can't even anymore.

Fox staff go off script more often than you may think. They just churn them and a lot of other shit out at a quick pace. Then pretend they never existed. Remember the guy who started ranting about the two man con? Me neither.

It's the unexpected bonus of the prison pipelines, they're not fussy about who gets in.

On a different note, working my way through that stupid conference the other day. Idiot actually states that he would have instructed Flynn to do what he did, if he hadn't already done so. That's kind of odd. "If he hadn't had already broken the law I would have instructed him to do so and now he's sacked because he did". This isn't Orwell, it's Monty python.

Just FYI, Schindler is a little crazy, in that way ex-spies tend to go. He may not be wrong, and he has the credentials and contacts, but he's the definition of an unreliable narrator. "Trust, but verify" applies to him (he was right about the IC witholding intelligence from the White House).

Today the mother of parliaments debated a petition from one and a half million British subjects who want to stop the orange ranger from being offered a state visit, because it will be a horrible embarrassment to her majesty. While the House was debating this some news broke which should make a difference to how the question is viewed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-39032062

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Muslim teacher 'denied entry to US' on school trip From the section South West Wales

There was also a little baby petition with very very small hands signed by 300,000 people who want Rump to come. I would like to think that they want an opportunity to heckle and boo him but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Also This happened on the 16th; I mean haven't the US courts nixed this shit temporarily? FFS America, a British teacher? WTF?

Idiot is picking up some cracking supporters too:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39027611

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President Donald Trump Idiot should be given a chance to prove himself, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe says.He went on to express his support for Mr Trump's America-first policy, saying "America for Americans" and "Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans".

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President Mugabe, Africa's oldest head of state, also repeated that he is not ready to step down from power."The majority of the people feel that there is no replacement, successor who to them is acceptable, as acceptable as I am," he told state media.His Zanu-PF party has endorsed Mr Mugabe as its candidate in elections due next year.Last week, first lady Grace Mugabe said if the party were to field his corpse, he would still win.

President Donald Trump Idiot should be given a chance to prove himself, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe says.He went on to express his support for Mr Trump's America-first policy, saying "America for WHITE Americans" and "Zimbabwe for BLACK Zimbabweans".

Today the mother of parliaments debated a petition from one and a half million British subjects who want to stop the orange ranger from being offered a state visit, because it will be a horrible embarrassment to her majesty. While the House was debating this some news broke which should make a difference to how the question is viewed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-39032062

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Muslim teacher 'denied entry to US' on school trip From the section South West Wales

There was also a little baby petition with very very small hands signed by 300,000 people who want Rump to come. I would like to think that they want an opportunity to heckle and boo him but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Also This happened on the 16th; I mean haven't the US courts nixed this shit temporarily? FFS America, a British teacher? WTF?

I can see how the president might view anybody capable of imparting knowledge as a direct threat

He was carrying illegal algebra on him. Which is doubly bad because algebra is Arabic in the first place. You can tell because it has "al" in front of it. "Al"gebra, "al"cohol, "Al" Capone...all Muslim, all dangerous.

More seriously, I'm surprised by Trump's new National Security Advisor choice. Not least because, despite the creeping militarisation of the Trump cabinet (note how many non-military NSA's Trump has proposed? None) he actually seems competent. He's also known for not mincing his words with people above him in the chain of command and challenging conventional thinking. Basically, unless he's also some complete nut on China or Muslims or something, he's exactly the kind of person I could see bumping heads with Trump constantly.

More seriously, I'm surprised by Trump's new National Security Advisor choice. Not least because, despite the creeping militarisation of the Trump cabinet (note how many non-military NSA's Trump has proposed? None) he actually seems competent. He's also known for not mincing his words with people above him in the chain of command and challenging conventional thinking. Basically, unless he's also some complete nut on China or Muslims or something, he's exactly the kind of person I could see bumping heads with Trump constantly.

I always figured the finale of this act was a tossup between an open topped limo ride through Dallas or a military coup. Looks like the scriptwriters are keeping their options open.

Today the mother of parliaments debated a petition from one and a half million British subjects who want to stop the orange ranger from being offered a state visit, because it will be a horrible embarrassment to her majesty. While the House was debating this some news broke which should make a difference to how the question is viewed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-39032062

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Muslim teacher 'denied entry to US' on school trip From the section South West Wales

There was also a little baby petition with very very small hands signed by 300,000 people who want Rump to come. I would like to think that they want an opportunity to heckle and boo him but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Also This happened on the 16th; I mean haven't the US courts nixed this shit temporarily? FFS America, a British teacher? WTF?

I can see how the president might view anybody capable of imparting knowledge as a direct threat

More details, if that's what you can call them:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-39037385

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Muslim teacher denied entry to the United States while on a school trip said he has still not been told why.Juhel Miah, 25, told BBC Wales: "All I want is a reason, I want to know why they kicked me off the flight."

I'm sticking with "teaching while brown" until a better answer appears.

This is interesting though:

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In the letter, Mr Jones says he understands Mr Miah was "escorted from the aircraft by US Homeland Security personnel".

So the US is pulling this shit preemptively in nations where they have no jurisdiction. Think about that for a minute. Not turned away when arriving at US immigration, this shit went down in iceland. It's a pretty small step from this to just arbitrarily restricting movement of people between non US countries, because fuck you.

No official statement from anyone yet which I would suggest means that one is not going to be forthcoming anytime soon, if ever. If there was a clear cut and simple reason like "his brother is a known terrorist" it would have been shouted from the rooftops by now.

I'll give you 3/1 odds on a disparaging statement made about idiot/the US made on social media for the reason for removal.

Before he reached the White House, Trump's company had laid claim to at least 3,643 website domains, according to internet records gathered by CNNMoney.

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For example, he bought TrumpNetwork.com in 2007 in preparation to launch a multi-level marketing company, in the style of Amway and Herbalife. This is a controversial type of business that offers people the promise of self-employment and high salary as long as they recruit others -- who in turn must find even more recruits.MLMs, as they're called, are often accused of being pyramid schemes. Trump saw that coming.In the months before he launched Trump Network in 2009, he acquired TrumpMultiLevelMarketing.com, TrumpNetworkFraud.com, TrumpNetworkPyramidScheme.com, TrumpNetworkPonziScheme.com and 15 similar iterations. He sold the business in 2012."Whoever bought those domains was already thinking those allegations might be raised. Most reputable organizations do not go out and buy these kinds of websites. Most companies are not going to engage in activities that would cause this kind of blowback," said Bruce Rubin, senior counselor at rbb Communications in Miami who is one of the top crisis public relations experts in the country.

So, as a rule, I recommend not reading the HuffPo or linking to them, due to their policies on not paying writers.

I'm making an exception here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-anton-trump-essay-publius-decius-mus_us_589ba947e4b09bd304bff3c8

These people scare me a hell of a lot more than Trump. They are going to worm their way in forever now. At least, that's how it seems, like they know it's OK to come out from whatever rock mass public guilt from the Holocaust put them under.

So what have we learned from this deep dive into the network of Donald Trump’s Russian/FSU connections?

First, the President-elect really is very “well-connected,” with an extensive network of unsavory global underground connections that may well be unprecedented in White House history. In choosing his associates, evidently Donald Trump only pays cursory attention to questions of background, character, and integrity.

Second, Donald Trump has also literally spent decades cultivating senior relationships of all kinds with Russia and the FSU. And public and private senior Russian figures of all kinds have likewise spent decades cultivating him, not only as a business partner, but as a “useful idiot.”

Yeah... kleptocracy doesn't even begin to describe the situation. I'd been told some time ago he was in balls deep debt to the "Russian Mafia". At a certain level the line between criminal syndicate and government sanctioned ops blurs. A very messy shadow war is the inevitable outcome. For my part I'm just focused on getting and keeping my shit together, hopefully supporting some good causes.

Mogilevich himself is much more than just a gangster, though. Litvinenko said he was good friends with Putin, shortly before he had a nice cup of polonium, and that could just be coincidence, except for the FBI stating he is responsible for a slew of contract killings and trafficking in nuclear material besides. Mogilevich has also been linked to Al-Qaeda, supplying them weapons. He also owns banks, oil and gas interests, and is a frequent "silent partner" to oligarchs such as Dmytro Firtash...who previously employed The Donald's campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Given how the FSB protects the Solntsevskaya Bratva, the idea that Mogilevich isn't spooked up is not credible. Especially since he still freely walks around Moscow.

Yeah. See the thing, as I see it, is that there's no actual "Illuminati" in control of everything, but there ARE folks so far up the pyramid that to suggest otherwise to them would be a rather silly thing to do. There may not actually be anybody driving the bus, but there are definitely folks fighting over the title of official bus driver. Some of them are more competitive about it than others.

I don't know how far the craziness actually goes, but it's really clear to me from events and persons that have been part of my life that more than one set of hidden hands is at work in our world and that certain kinds of power and knowledge are NOT to be shared openly with the "masses" if you know what's good for you.

Yeah. See the thing, as I see it, is that there's no actual "Illuminati" in control of everything, but there ARE folks so far up the pyramid that to suggest otherwise to them would be a rather silly thing to do. There may not actually be anybody driving the bus, but there are definitely folks fighting over the title of official bus driver. Some of them are more competitive about it than others.

I don't know how far the craziness actually goes, but it's really clear to me from events and persons that have been part of my life that more than one set of hidden hands is at work in our world and that certain kinds of power and knowledge are NOT to be shared openly with the "masses" if you know what's good for you.

KYFMS is a survival axiom. I got shitall else to say.

So you are proposing a level of government that transcends bureaucracy?

The higher up you get, the more surrounded and bogged down by bureaucracy you become, to the point where it becomes more and more difficult to effect change at lower levels. People who make it to the top in a democracy are usually masters of wrangling bureaucracy, having spent many years navigating the ropes of writing, proposing, revising, compromising on, and voting for legislation. That deep knowledge of the horrors of bureaucracy -- the system -- is what allows people like, say, Hillary Clinton to be a relatively effective politician, ie. a leader who moves policy in the direction her constituents want it to go in.

There is a way to get to be the eye in the pyramid; that's called "a dictatorship". It cuts through the bureaucracy, permitting the leader at the top of the pyramid to make unilateral decisions and effect rapid change. You can see how well that usually goes by looking at any dictatorship ever. Without the tangles of bureaucracy to slow things down, a dictator can be solely responsible for making decisions that effect sweeping changes, all alone at the top, which is also the position they will be in when the mobs come.

Oh, and then there's Trump, who is neither. Sit back and enjoy the clusterfuck in action, because there are two generally predictable ways this can go; either our bureaucratic system works, and he becomes the lamest lame duck president since Jimmy Carter, or he manages to transcend bureaucracy, which will be a complete and utter shitshow.

Yeah. See the thing, as I see it, is that there's no actual "Illuminati" in control of everything, but there ARE folks so far up the pyramid that to suggest otherwise to them would be a rather silly thing to do. There may not actually be anybody driving the bus, but there are definitely folks fighting over the title of official bus driver. Some of them are more competitive about it than others.

I don't know how far the craziness actually goes, but it's really clear to me from events and persons that have been part of my life that more than one set of hidden hands is at work in our world and that certain kinds of power and knowledge are NOT to be shared openly with the "masses" if you know what's good for you.

KYFMS is a survival axiom. I got shitall else to say.

So you are proposing a level of government that transcends bureaucracy?

I doubt it. Bureaucracy is an inverse pyramid.

No. I know for a fact that Government is not the most powerful or influential factor in our world. As much as I love me some reason and good social order those things are overshadowed by forceful coercion and superstition to this day, in some cases it serves these factors directly. International finance, religion, and the power of violence are very much how things are done in our world, but none of that is what most folks living day to day lives know or want. I certainly don't, but I can't change what IS.

Oh, and then there's Trump, who is neither. Sit back and enjoy the clusterfuck in action, because there are two generally predictable ways this can go; either our bureaucratic system works, and he becomes the lamest lame duck president since Jimmy Carter, or he manages to transcend bureaucracy, which will be a complete and utter shitshow.

The shitshow is just barely beginning. The good news is that he and what he represents are not unopposed. Nobody that isn't already crazy wants THAT eschaton, but the crazies are now in power so...

The government certainly doesn't have a monopoly on power, but legitimate power's center of gravity is in government. The reservoirs of power outside the government are fractious and competitive. They seldom manage to consolidate into an effective counterweight to government power that can bark orders without going through official channels, at least not on a massive or widespread scale. They compete to capture that center of gravity into their own orbits. Bureaucracy in this metaphor would, I guess, be the stiff medium through which that mass must be pulled, and it acts sort of like a non-Newtonian fluid in that it strongly resists abrupt movements, and attempts to break that barrier are either stopped more or less cold, or if they can act with sufficient force, cause the fabric of that bureaucracy to shear or shatter.

So I guess the question is whether Trump's admittedly intense efforts carry enough mass with them to do lasting damage to the bureaucratic order. So far, the resistance seems to be holding as various forces align in direct opposition to his efforts and a lot of the energy Trump is putting into the system is lost to friction and apparently aimless indecision, and much of his original "mass" of support evaporates. But Trump's administration and a large part of his support in the public form a core of fundamentally hostile actors who are very openly trying to undermine and destroy the bureaucratic order. So... we'll see.

The government certainly doesn't have a monopoly on power, but legitimate power's center of gravity is in government. The reservoirs of power outside the government are fractious and competitive. They seldom manage to consolidate into an effective counterweight to government power that can bark orders without going through official channels, at least not on a massive or widespread scale. They compete to capture that center of gravity into their own orbits. Bureaucracy in this metaphor would, I guess, be the stiff medium through which that mass must be pulled, and it acts sort of like a non-Newtonian fluid in that it strongly resists abrupt movements, and attempts to break that barrier are either stopped more or less cold, or if they can act with sufficient force, cause the fabric of that bureaucracy to shear or shatter.

So I guess the question is whether Trump's admittedly intense efforts carry enough mass with them to do lasting damage to the bureaucratic order. So far, the resistance seems to be holding as various forces align in direct opposition to his efforts and a lot of the energy Trump is putting into the system is lost to friction and apparently aimless indecision, and much of his original "mass" of support evaporates. But Trump's administration and a large part of his support in the public form a core of fundamentally hostile actors who are very openly trying to undermine and destroy the bureaucratic order. So... we'll see.

It's been a long time since we've had such a stark reminder that order and disorder may be in a state of tension, but that the goal is to maintain a balance between the two, not to destroy order.

Bureaucracy maintains a status quo that often contains stifling and oppressive elements, so it is frustrating to try to chip away at those elements trying to get them to change. In those cases, Grayface seems like the enemy, rigidly clinging to protocols and channels and hierarchy. But Grayface clings to those protocols and channels and hierarchy when people try to change the status quo to make things MORE stifling and oppressive, as well.

Grayface is bureaucracy. Grayface is the court system. Grayface is the fair trial. Grayface is filling out paperwork. Grayface is going through the proper channels. Grayface is compromise. Grayface is ten years from proposing a bill to passing the modified version into law. Grayface is checks and balances.

This doesn't mean that those who prefer disorder have to work for Grayface. But it is a reminder to appreciate Grayface, because it is as necessary as the forces of Discord are for STRIFE, which is the interface between order and disorder.

vex, you seem to be forgetting that this is the tRump century. Your ideas about legitimate power lying with government sound so quaintly old-fashioned, like that Victorians covering up piano legs in the interests of modesty; which is another fake fact. Government power, in what for the moment are still nominally free democracies, will only obtain until someone comes along with the will, guile and cash to stage a buy out. Read some Hobbes, try the Leviathan, you can see the thought processes behind the development of our modern beliefs about power. Power in its essence is neither legitimate nor illegitimate it is merely wielded.Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

also Nigel is right re. the order/disorder thingy. Discordians have spent years mulling over this shit. Who knew we would end up on the white hot edge of political thinking?

vex, you seem to be forgetting that this is the tRump century. Your ideas about legitimate power lying with government sound so quaintly old-fashioned, like that Victorians covering up piano legs in the interests of modesty; which is another fake fact. Government power, in what for the moment are still nominally free democracies, will only obtain until someone comes along with the will, guile and cash to stage a buy out. Read some Hobbes, try the Leviathan, you can see the thought processes behind the development of our modern beliefs about power. Power in its essence is neither legitimate nor illegitimate it is merely wielded.Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

also Nigel is right re. the order/disorder thingy. Discordians have spent years mulling over this shit. Who knew we would end up on the white hot edge of political thinking?

I meant "legitimate" facetiously and in the general consensus that if power is going to be wielded, it must be done so through the government. "Legitimacy" isn't a real thing, it's just a stamp on the exercise of power. You're right that who controls the stamp at any time isn't controlled by the government itself, especially not since the government's own mass of power has been under sustained attacked for half a century. But we're not yet at the point where power can be directly exercised without that stamp of legitimacy with complete impunity for very long.

I'm not talking so much about how the system was designed, but about how it functionally works. The government does have the advantage of perceived legitimacy which acts as a force multiplier for hard power, whereas a throng of brownshirts don't. So it's the brownshirts' objective to usurp the "legitimacy" of government power in order to curbstomp their way to actual power. Just like it's every competing political or economic group's objective to ensnare the government's "legitimate" power and influence into orbit around their own. Sure, someday we might get to a point where corporate armies enact company policy despite the legality of doing so, but more likely is that they will just make it legal in the first place by influencing "legitimate" policy and removing the bureaucratic obstacles.

You know, if we'd been having this conversation last year I would have totally agreed with you. In my wilful liberal naivete I don't think I had ever really though that the purchasing, lock stock and barrel, of a modern western democracy was actually a possible outcome of, well anything really. My political gamut ran from get elected and run with the current system to overthrow this system it sucks lets try to get it right next time. Being "Owned" in a literal monetary sense never actually occurred to me as being a thing which might happen. I kind of thought that when it came to politics the aim was to win the game not to buy the casino.

So from where I'm currently looking:-

Quote

Sure, someday we might get to a point where corporate armies enact company policy despite the legality of doing so, but more likely is that they will just make it legal in the first place by influencing "legitimate" policy and removing the bureaucratic obstacles.

My initial thinking was that this was a chan operation. It's low cost, fairly low risk and undeniably effective.

According to Haaretz and Buzzfeed, the threats have used online anonymity services and computer produced voices to actually phone in the threats. That also means the threats could come from - and look like they come from - anywhere in the world, even though a good 90% of channers are Anglosphere (which matches up with some of the earlier calls also targeting Canadian and British Jewish schools). We also know /pol/ is basically daycare for baby Stormfronters, so this wouldn't be exactly surprising.

There could be an Islamic angle to this, but it seems somewhat unlikely - if you're angry at Jews and a Muslim, Hamas and ISIS are still recruiting, last I heard. But it's not impossible - Junaid Hussain was formerly a member of TeaMp0ison before he went off to head up the ISIS Cyber Caliphate (and was subsequently missiled until he was dead). TeaMp0ison had crossover with the Anonymous hacktivist wing, and it's not impossible that there has been further cross-pollination and adoption of tactics.

But the headstones...well that has to be internal. No way around that. I doubt someone is going to fly in from WhereverTheHell to smash up some graveyards.

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

It's worth noting that Mercer may be overstating his case. He owns Cambridge Analytica who have claimed - without much evidence - to have had a significant impact on Trump's campaign. It's great advertising, saying you helped a sure-fire loser win.

Looks like Sessions perjured himself by lying under oath that he had contact with the Russian government during the election campaign.

Kislyak must be feeling awfully slighted by now. All these conversations people have had with him, that they later on say they cannot recall. Quite upsetting.

Having looked closely at the actual text of what he said, it may or may not be perjury. He claimed not to have spoken with any representative of or anyone associated with the Russian government about the Trump campaign. While I definitely agree that his responses were intentionally misleading and disingenuous, a lot rides on the wording of the questions, as he can deny that any conversation about the campaign took place, and I doubt there are any transcripts to prove otherwise.

True, the wording was quite...lawyerly. The intent to decieve is fairly clear though, given how he initially claimed to not remember the meetings, and then claimed to remember precisely what was discussed. Probably not enough for perjury...but enough that senior Republicans are requesting he remove himself from the FBI's Russia probe. That's enough for me.

True, the wording was quite...lawyerly. The intent to decieve is fairly clear though, given how he initially claimed to not remember the meetings, and then claimed to remember precisely what was discussed. Probably not enough for perjury...but enough that senior Republicans are requesting he remove himself from the FBI's Russia probe. That's enough for me.

Yes, I think that he has certainly proven himself disqualified to be involved on the investigating end, at the very, very least.

The fact that I now look back on the W years as a time of unspoiled, naive innocence says a lot. Granted, I can only do that because of a certain melanin content in my skin and because I was not the direct target of the more sinister forces at work during W's reign of incompetence, but it's still surreal to go from what I thought was a disaster, to the relatively boring Obama years, to... whatever the fuck this is.

The fact that I now look back on the W years as a time of unspoiled, naive innocence says a lot. Granted, I can only do that because of a certain melanin content in my skin and because I was not the direct target of the more sinister forces at work during W's reign of incompetence, but it's still surreal to go from what I thought was a disaster, to the relatively boring Obama years, to... whatever the fuck this is.

Here's the thing: Obama normalised the idiocy of Bush. When you can accept a smiling guy telling you that gitmo will continue then it becomes easier to accept an idiot shouting that it's not far enough. Drone use is frequent enough now to be unremarkable. Bet that changes with a few fuckups over the next couple of months.

The fact that I now look back on the W years as a time of unspoiled, naive innocence says a lot. Granted, I can only do that because of a certain melanin content in my skin and because I was not the direct target of the more sinister forces at work during W's reign of incompetence, but it's still surreal to go from what I thought was a disaster, to the relatively boring Obama years, to... whatever the fuck this is.

Here's the thing: Obama normalised the idiocy of Bush. When you can accept a smiling guy telling you that gitmo will continue then it becomes easier to accept an idiot shouting that it's not far enough. Drone use is frequent enough now to be unremarkable. Bet that changes with a few fuckups over the next couple of months.

This is totally true. But I'm also aware that the presidency is not the supreme power that many people assume it is. There are so many forces with so much power contending for the opportunity to wield the presidential pen that the force of any one person's will can only do so much at that level. Guantanamo should have been closed and, legally, I'm sure that Obama could have forced the issue if he had wanted to. As Commander in Chief I'm not convinced that power was not safely within his authority to do. And 2008 Obama certainly did want to do it. So why didn't he? There's more to that story than "man corrupted by Washington swamp". There are people, organizations, and just realities that presidents contend with that undermine oversimplistic ideas about the "corrupting influence" of power and influence (though those do certainly corrupt).

What I was getting at with that comment though is how odd a feeling it is to go from despising that accidental "shadow government" (no, not the Illuminati, but the hidden intersection of so many opposing strategies, bureaucracies, and agendas) to having to hope it is powerful enough to stymie a madman like Trump and thwart his administration's overtly Fascist intentions.

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to IndyStar in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cyber-security experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence's are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence's personal account was hacked last summer.

Quote

Cybersecurity experts say Pence’s emails were likely just as insecure as Clinton’s. While there has been speculation about whether Clinton's emails were hacked, Pence’s account was actually compromised last summer by a scammer who sent an email to his contacts claiming Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and in urgent need of money.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

So then Pence, who is absolutely incapable of leadership.

Yes. It doesn't seem like Pence is "in the loop" on Russia, given how Flynn and Trump gave him the runaround. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

But then if Pence goes, it's Ryan, so I'm not seeing any good options here.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

I am, at times, not sure if he realizes that Obama is no longer President.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

So then Pence, who is absolutely incapable of leadership.

Yes. It doesn't seem like Pence is "in the loop" on Russia, given how Flynn and Trump gave him the runaround. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

But then if Pence goes, it's Ryan, so I'm not seeing any good options here.

At this point, I would be pretty OK with anyone who is an actual politician with an actual policy or law background and some experience in governance. People who understand what laws are, and have an inkling of how foreign policy works.

ANYONE who is not totally insane would make me feel, at the very least, less like the US is being pushed rapidly into total destabilization.

I mean, a re-org might not be economically catastrophic, but let's be real, it probably would be. Trump is pushing us toward a re-org.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

So then Pence, who is absolutely incapable of leadership.

Yes. It doesn't seem like Pence is "in the loop" on Russia, given how Flynn and Trump gave him the runaround. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

But then if Pence goes, it's Ryan, so I'm not seeing any good options here.

Only if they don't have time to appoint another VP. But Ryan would be kingmaker, so...

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

I am, at times, not sure if he realizes that Obama is no longer President.

Oh, the conspiracy crowd have been working this thing, ever since Obama left office. The "theory" is "Obama's Shadow Government", that Obama has somehow taken over the bureaucracy of the USA and is secretly directing a campaign of links and disinformation against Trump. Obama is also coordinating all the protests against Trump. And he has a secret command bunker in Washington DC (?). Naturally, this is all paid for by (((Soros))). It's a thing they've been going on about since basically January 21st.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

So then Pence, who is absolutely incapable of leadership.

Yes. It doesn't seem like Pence is "in the loop" on Russia, given how Flynn and Trump gave him the runaround. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

But then if Pence goes, it's Ryan, so I'm not seeing any good options here.

At this point, I would be pretty OK with anyone who is an actual politician with an actual policy or law background and some experience in governance. People who understand what laws are, and have an inkling of how foreign policy works.

ANYONE who is not totally insane would make me feel, at the very least, less like the US is being pushed rapidly into total destabilization.

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

I am, at times, not sure if he realizes that Obama is no longer President.

Oh, the conspiracy crowd have been working this thing, ever since Obama left office. The "theory" is "Obama's Shadow Government", that Obama has somehow taken over the bureaucracy of the USA and is secretly directing a campaign of links and disinformation against Trump. Obama is also coordinating all the protests against Trump. And he has a secret command bunker in Washington DC (?). Naturally, this is all paid for by (((Soros))). It's a thing they've been going on about since basically January 21st.

So basically Obama is Illuminati?

What a convenient (and completely insane) way to resolve the cognitive dissonance of Trump's complete incompetence!

Trump seems to think that the President can order wiretaps, and that Obama ordered wiretaps on him. Of course, Comey did in fact obtain a court order allowing surveillance on Trump's communications, but last I checked, Comey is not Obama.

Not only that, his tone is increasingly shrill and hysterical. At this point, I think it's 50/50 whether a special prosecutor gets him or a heart attack does.

I am, at times, not sure if he realizes that Obama is no longer President.

Oh, the conspiracy crowd have been working this thing, ever since Obama left office. The "theory" is "Obama's Shadow Government", that Obama has somehow taken over the bureaucracy of the USA and is secretly directing a campaign of links and disinformation against Trump. Obama is also coordinating all the protests against Trump. And he has a secret command bunker in Washington DC (?). Naturally, this is all paid for by (((Soros))). It's a thing they've been going on about since basically January 21st.

So basically Obama is Illuminati?

What a convenient (and completely insane) way to resolve the cognitive dissonance of Trump's complete incompetence!

Ask some of them and Obama is The Antichrist, clone-son of Akhenaten, and/or the reptilian king. All this while also being a Kenyan Muslim.

Fuck I even saw some shit about "moloch vs kek" running around youtube. The absurdity of this shit is crowned by what folks seem to believe about their "God-emperor Trump" as some kind of saviour... It's too early for this shit.

Obama is the entire Illuminati all by himself. He's running a secret shadow government from the basement of Comet Ping Pong, personally directing every single public servant to put as much red tape in Trump's way as possible. He also hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be Russian diplomats and Trump advisers on phony phone calls he recorded with one of those tape recorder things that Macaulay Culkin had in Home Alone 2 in order to frame Trump for being a Russian puppet. I don't see how you sheeple can miss this, it's happening right before your eyes.

Obama is the entire Illuminati all by himself. He's running a secret shadow government from the basement of Comet Ping Pong, personally directing every single public servant to put as much red tape in Trump's way as possible. He also hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be Russian diplomats and Trump advisers on phony phone calls he recorded with one of those tape recorder things that Macaulay Culkin had in Home Alone 2 in order to frame Trump for being a Russian puppet. I don't see how you sheeple can miss this, it's happening right before your eyes.

I feel like a spectator in someone's mental illness. Where they make up insane logic to delude themselves on their morally questionable actions and scapegoat responsibility to someone else.

Dude... you should have a quiet sit-down in an American fundamentalist church setting some time. The reality schism is palpable. I'm from that reality, it's DIFFERENT than I remember it in a subtle way I can't define as anything but.. disquieting.

Obama is the entire Illuminati all by himself. He's running a secret shadow government from the basement of Comet Ping Pong, personally directing every single public servant to put as much red tape in Trump's way as possible. He also hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be Russian diplomats and Trump advisers on phony phone calls he recorded with one of those tape recorder things that Macaulay Culkin had in Home Alone 2 in order to frame Trump for being a Russian puppet. I don't see how you sheeple can miss this, it's happening right before your eyes.

:lulz:You should be writing copy for Infowars.

edit because derp

Working on it. Refer to my post on the Occult History of the Ellipsis for further mind-blowing facts.

Who else is waiting for Trump's response to the CIA leak? I'm on the edge of my seat.

Incidentally, look at that timing!

Explain like I'm five, is it the signing of the new travel order or something else?

Wikileaks dumps a bunch of stuff that makes the CIA look incompetent and like bad guys, while the pressure is going up on Trump about his administrations links to Russian intelligence. Could just be coincidence...

Who else is waiting for Trump's response to the CIA leak? I'm on the edge of my seat.

Incidentally, look at that timing!

Explain like I'm five, is it the signing of the new travel order or something else?

Wikileaks dumps a bunch of stuff that makes the CIA look incompetent and like bad guys, while the pressure is going up on Trump about his administrations links to Russian intelligence. Could just be coincidence...

Yikes, that makes sense, and because of the 24 hour news cycle attention span the Russian links could well be forgotten for a long time now.I was at a security conference today and they mentioned that apart from the political fallout, that the CIA warchest is now empty: all of their developed malware has been disclosed and will be easy to both reverse engineer AND detect.Meaning they are now at a point they need to start over, and are about 3 or 4 years behind Russia and China. So apart from just a political move, it literally sets back the espionage arms race for the US, not a bad thing.... If you can also set back russia and china, which no one has done.

Obama is the entire Illuminati all by himself. He's running a secret shadow government from the basement of Comet Ping Pong, personally directing every single public servant to put as much red tape in Trump's way as possible. He also hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be Russian diplomats and Trump advisers on phony phone calls he recorded with one of those tape recorder things that Macaulay Culkin had in Home Alone 2 in order to frame Trump for being a Russian puppet. I don't see how you sheeple can miss this, it's happening right before your eyes.

:lulz:You should be writing copy for Infowars.

edit because derp

Working on it. Refer to my post on the Occult History of the Ellipsis for further mind-blowing facts.

Who else is waiting for Trump's response to the CIA leak? I'm on the edge of my seat.

Incidentally, look at that timing!

Explain like I'm five, is it the signing of the new travel order or something else?

Wikileaks dumps a bunch of stuff that makes the CIA look incompetent and like bad guys, while the pressure is going up on Trump about his administrations links to Russian intelligence. Could just be coincidence...

Yikes, that makes sense, and because of the 24 hour news cycle attention span the Russian links could well be forgotten for a long time now.

We all need to do our part to make sure that the takeaway people get from this is "when the CIA talks about hacking, they know what they're talking about"

Yeah, I know those people. I grew up surrounded by them. They are proudly ignorant, and blindly and toadyingly authoritarian as long as they perceive the authority as one of their own kind. Thanks to the magic of Facedook, I'm still connected with some of them and witness their mental processes.

Just a few days ago, I saw where one of them had replied to someone "I thaut russia was are frien?", which, while still painfully ignorant, showed a glimmer of hope that he might actually be willing to consider the possibility that Russia is not, in fact, "are frien".

Kellyanne Conway has had to confirm that she did not mean she thought the Trump administration were being surveilled through microwaves that turn into cameras by Obama.

What a time to be alive.

Before you laugh too quickly, I remind you it's only March. Just imagine the full blown insanity that you'll be enjoying after a couple of years of this shit. I'm actually expecting a statement on the reptoid menace any day now.

Kellyanne Conway has had to confirm that she did not mean she thought the Trump administration were being surveilled through microwaves that turn into cameras by Obama.

What a time to be alive.

Before you laugh too quickly, I remind you it's only March. Just imagine the full blown insanity that you'll be enjoying after a couple of years of this shit. I'm actually expecting a statement on the reptoid menace any day now.

While youtube surfing I came upon a vid that had "Trump to release DARPA technology" or something in the title. I didn't want to watch it because I can only deal with just so much at a time, but the theme of The Donald as revelator and something of a techno-messiah seems strong.

:lulz:Why I even heard once that he was a "Kantian and going to complete German Idealism". Gosh that sure sounds nifty.

Here's the Jonestown version from an alt-outlet. This was recorded within a week or so of the inaugural things. The DARPA bit comes in around 18min, but if you can stomach it I suggest watching the whole thing for a sense of how twist this is actually getting and to see some of the roots of the current narrative.

Kellyanne Conway has had to confirm that she did not mean she thought the Trump administration were being surveilled through microwaves that turn into cameras by Obama.

What a time to be alive.

Before you laugh too quickly, I remind you it's only March. Just imagine the full blown insanity that you'll be enjoying after a couple of years of this shit. I'm actually expecting a statement on the reptoid menace any day now.

Quote from: The Washington Post

Trump, according to Stone, wasn’t difficult to persuade. The president-elect is “an inveterate watcher of television. He has watched Infowars, Stone says. “They hit it off.”

Quote from: Right Wing Watch

Jones told Icke that while he doesn’t yet buy this theory, he suspects it is right and that it doesn’t matter either way since, whether or not they are space lizards, the shadowy figures who are running the world have the same nefarious, anti-human end game.

Kellyanne Conway has had to confirm that she did not mean she thought the Trump administration were being surveilled through microwaves that turn into cameras by Obama.

What a time to be alive.

Before you laugh too quickly, I remind you it's only March. Just imagine the full blown insanity that you'll be enjoying after a couple of years of this shit. I'm actually expecting a statement on the reptoid menace any day now.

Quote from: The Washington Post

Trump, according to Stone, wasn’t difficult to persuade. The president-elect is “an inveterate watcher of television. He has watched Infowars, Stone says. “They hit it off.”

Quote from: Right Wing Watch

Jones told Icke that while he doesn’t yet buy this theory, he suspects it is right and that it doesn’t matter either way since, whether or not they are space lizards, the shadowy figures who are running the world have the same nefarious, anti-human end game.

"BREAKING NEWS: We here at NBC are so positively desperate for a story we're going to break the entire Internet for six hours just to read you the most boring parts of an entirely uninteresting document."

I'm assuming this was intentionally "leaked" by someone around Trump who is actually not an idiot. Thanks to the predictable way Rachel Maddow pounced on this "story", the whole question of the missing tax returns for the decade AFTER this 2005 will be met with "Well, there was nothing interesting in 2005, why don't you just give it up?" from every corner. As a bonus, Sean Spicer gets to be the one poking fun at the Left for a change, with "Ha ha did you see the way Maddow dropped that dud?" at every press briefing for the next three months.

"BREAKING NEWS: We here at NBC are so positively desperate for a story we're going to break the entire Internet for six hours just to read you the most boring parts of an entirely uninteresting document."

I'm assuming this was intentionally "leaked" by someone around Trump who is actually not an idiot. Thanks to the predictable way Rachel Maddow pounced on this "story", the whole question of the missing tax returns for the decade AFTER this 2005 will be met with "Well, there was nothing interesting in 2005, why don't you just give it up?" from every corner. As a bonus, Sean Spicer gets to be the one poking fun at the Left for a change, with "Ha ha did you see the way Maddow dropped that dud?" at every press briefing for the next three months.

Here's the thing that's bothering me, if you're tendering for decent work, the last 3 years accounts are usually on the docs list. That's because anyone can show 1 good/bad year but it's harder to hide shit for 3 years consecutively. So an 05 return is worthless without 06, and 07. And or 03 and 04. Paying X in one year is meaningless if you've dodged 2X the year after. Or 3X the year before.

It also stinks because if I'd paid that level of tax regularly I would use that to beat my opponent around the head with. "I objectively contribute more to society than you by Y degree". Clinton's taxes were known so it's reasonable to assume this claim can't be made because the orange idiot would have done so. So it's safe to assume any contribution will be lower than Clinton's total, assuming that it's even a positive number. I doubt that is the case.

I'll bet money I don't have that this was a blip year. There's literally no chance that 04 and before or after 05 show anything remotely similar. This should make everyone much more suspicious about the total return but I doubt it will. Because the world is apparently dedicated to stupid and easy answers.

That Rachel Maddow flop couldn't even get the traction it surely deserved with the travel ban and budget going the way they have so far.

There is no shoving a fist directly through the judicial system, as far as I am aware. He can't fire everybody, as much as he'd like. More importantly, it makes him look incredibly weak, not due to a judge thwarting him, but that he can't do as he said he would.

And the budget is hilariously bad. The pharmaceutical industry is expected to see an increase in fees for FDA approval processes of $2 billion! He expects that pharma is going to just sit there and pay for that wall? Or pay that much for ANYTHING? That's just so stupidly short-sighted.

It makes him look ineffective, but none of this (or anything) will have any effect on the heart of his base. Besides, if these people ever do decide Trump isn't doing it for them, they won't be coming back toward the middle to seek common ground. They'll go looking for someone even worse. Because the hard Right believes if extremism fails, it's because they weren't extreme enough. The only silver lining I can see is that as they start marching even farther into batshit country, maybe whatever contingent is unwilling to actually start literally flying Nazi flags just gives up and withdraws altogether, shrinking the number of extremists enough to give the GOP establishment a little more breathing room to compromise. But even that is probably impossible until someone proves in 2018 that the extremists are no longer strong enough to bulldoze an establishment candidate from the far right. Which would give us the benefit of a GOP that is merely dangerous, not also radical and insane.

Mind you, all of this is what now qualifies for "unicorns shitting rainbows in Utopia". In the real world, the Kekites will probably manage to radicalize another few million people and that turnaround the Democrats expect in 2018 will turn into yet another trouncing due to their continued inability to gain control of the conversation between now and then, thanks to the Democrats' seemingly infinite ability to think inside the box and play the game like it's still 1985.

He's confirmed, along with James Clapper, that there was no authorised wiretap on the Trump Towers. He's also confirmed that investigations into links between Russia and the Trump campaign team are happening - and that they were not included in the original IC assessment because those investigations are still ongoing.

I am convinced now that the Republicans have allowed themselves to believe their own bullshit, to their own disadvantage. They spent 8 years raising Hell about how Obama was some kind of radical dictator in order to gain up enough hate in the ranks to survive a few more elections. Not a bad strategy, really, if you're only trying to stay alive as a party. But they forgot it was just rhetoric and started actually believing that was how Obama was really governing. As a result, now that they are in power, that is how THEY set out to govern. And they are perplexed as to why it doesn't work. Furthermore they have no one to turn on and blame now except each other. Maybe it'll get even better.

The discussion late last summer involved ideas about how to get Fethullah Gulen, a cleric whom Turkey has accused of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup, to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, according to Mr. Woolsey and those who were briefed.

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

The Turkish ministers were interested in open-ended thinking on the subject, and the ideas were raised hypothetically, said the people who were briefed. The ministers in attendance included the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show.

Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” The discussion, he said, didn’t include actual tactics for removing Mr. Gulen from his U.S. home. If specific plans had been discussed, Mr. Woolsey said, he would have spoken up and questioned their legality.

It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it.

The discussion late last summer involved ideas about how to get Fethullah Gulen, a cleric whom Turkey has accused of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup, to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, according to Mr. Woolsey and those who were briefed.

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

The Turkish ministers were interested in open-ended thinking on the subject, and the ideas were raised hypothetically, said the people who were briefed. The ministers in attendance included the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show.

Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” The discussion, he said, didn’t include actual tactics for removing Mr. Gulen from his U.S. home. If specific plans had been discussed, Mr. Woolsey said, he would have spoken up and questioned their legality.

It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it.

:lulz:I'll have to remember that one.

"It wasn't no "conspiracy to commit" we was just havin' one of them nice, open-ended thinking hypothetical conversations. Ain't no crime in that yer honor."

I am beginning to think that the GOP isn't so much obstructionist as it is stupid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39388815

Quote

Earlier Mr Ryan told reporters: "We are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future."I will not sugar-coat this. This is a disappointing day for us. Doing big things is hard."We were a 10-year opposition party where being against things was easy to do," he said, adding that it was difficult to get "people to agree with each other in how we do things".

The discussion late last summer involved ideas about how to get Fethullah Gulen, a cleric whom Turkey has accused of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup, to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, according to Mr. Woolsey and those who were briefed.

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

The Turkish ministers were interested in open-ended thinking on the subject, and the ideas were raised hypothetically, said the people who were briefed. The ministers in attendance included the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show.

Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” The discussion, he said, didn’t include actual tactics for removing Mr. Gulen from his U.S. home. If specific plans had been discussed, Mr. Woolsey said, he would have spoken up and questioned their legality.

It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it.

:lulz:I'll have to remember that one.

"It wasn't no "conspiracy to commit" we was just havin' one of them nice, open-ended thinking hypothetical conversations. Ain't no crime in that yer honor."

Donald Trump handed the German chancellor Angela Merkel a bill — thought to be for more than £300bn — for money her country “owed” Nato for defending it when they met last weekend, German government sources have revealed.

The bill — handed over during private talks in Washington — was described as “outrageous” by one German minister.

The discussion late last summer involved ideas about how to get Fethullah Gulen, a cleric whom Turkey has accused of orchestrating last summer’s failed military coup, to Turkey without going through the U.S. extradition legal process, according to Mr. Woolsey and those who were briefed.

Mr. Woolsey told The Wall Street Journal he arrived at the meeting in New York on Sept. 19 in the middle of the discussion and found the topic startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal.

The Turkish ministers were interested in open-ended thinking on the subject, and the ideas were raised hypothetically, said the people who were briefed. The ministers in attendance included the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show.

Mr. Woolsey said the idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” The discussion, he said, didn’t include actual tactics for removing Mr. Gulen from his U.S. home. If specific plans had been discussed, Mr. Woolsey said, he would have spoken up and questioned their legality.

It isn’t known who raised the idea or what Mr. Flynn concluded about it.

:lulz:I'll have to remember that one.

"It wasn't no "conspiracy to commit" we was just havin' one of them nice, open-ended thinking hypothetical conversations. Ain't no crime in that yer honor."

It gets better. Devin Nunes was also present at that meeting

https://twitter.com/yottapoint/status/845712917764845568

You mean the guy, a security council member IIRC, that called a pretty dodgy news conference and personally informed the Executive upon hearing confidential information concerning secondary intel gathering as a craven and whorish attempt to give Trump something that might be misconstrued as leverage re "Obama tapped my wires". That Nunes?

Oh...

Oh... myyyy. Something tells me this is going to be the biggest clusterfuck in modern history when the dust settles... hopefully not fallout dust.

Donald Trump handed the German chancellor Angela Merkel a bill — thought to be for more than £300bn — for money her country “owed” Nato for defending it when they met last weekend, German government sources have revealed.

The bill — handed over during private talks in Washington — was described as “outrageous” by one German minister.

What's the plan here? This is just insanely stupid on so many levels I can't even.

Donald Trump handed the German chancellor Angela Merkel a bill — thought to be for more than £300bn — for money her country “owed” Nato for defending it when they met last weekend, German government sources have revealed.

The bill — handed over during private talks in Washington — was described as “outrageous” by one German minister.

What's the plan here? This is just insanely stupid on so many levels I can't even.

That, combined with naming names when shaming hard-line conservatives for disloyalty, and the laundry-list of derp Trump seems to carry with him, should make for the best/shortest US Presidency EVER.

It just keeps highlighting the idiots incompetence in deal making and business in general.

It's like he has no concept about how invoices work. My best guess is that the tit writes off the refusal to pay against the national debt or something, therefore showing something. Possibly uses it as a pretext to withdraw from NATO?

Betting a fiver that the breakdown is ludicrous because there's no way that figure was reached by someone working with facts or reality. It's got to include a stupid rate of compound interest and other random bullshit. Even then it's still almost certainly wrong by several orders of magnitude.

Donald Trump handed the German chancellor Angela Merkel a bill — thought to be for more than £300bn — for money her country “owed” Nato for defending it when they met last weekend, German government sources have revealed.

The bill — handed over during private talks in Washington — was described as “outrageous” by one German minister.

What's the plan here? This is just insanely stupid on so many levels I can't even.

That, combined with naming names when shaming hard-line conservatives for disloyalty, and the laundry-list of derp Trump seems to carry with him, should make for the best/shortest US Presidency EVER.

Actually I think he's already been in office longer than William Henry Harrison was

Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution

The healthcare thing...They had 8 years to prepare. 8 years to line up support, put together something that at least didn't seem heinous, and have it ready to go.

And now Trump and the republican congress are making threats at each other.

Quote

...and to hear the lamentations of Paul Ryan.

And this. :lulz:

The only alternative to "the GOP huffed their own farts so fucking hard they thought this would work" that I can think of is that they really didn't think they were gonna win the White House in 2016. They thought that Clinton would take it, and they would get at least another 4 years to whip up frothing-at-the-mouth crazies (they would lose the overt racism angle that they had with Obama, but misogyny and "EMAILZ" would probably have worked nearly as well). Plus, they could have gotten the Bernie Bros and Jill Stein's gelatinous voting blob-monsters to continue sabotaging the Left.

But they did, indeed, end up catching the car. And I suppose now it doesn't matter much if it was a cunning plan gone bad, or having rocks for brains.

Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjIwRTsRIPE

Oh this is GOLDEN. :lulz: Hope he doesn't have a nasty accident before he gets a chance to testify.

The healthcare thing...They had 8 years to prepare. 8 years to line up support, put together something that at least didn't seem heinous, and have it ready to go.

And now Trump and the republican congress are making threats at each other.

Quote

...and to hear the lamentations of Paul Ryan.

And this. :lulz:

The only alternative to "the GOP huffed their own farts so fucking hard they thought this would work" that I can think of is that they really didn't think they were gonna win the White House in 2016. They thought that Clinton would take it, and they would get at least another 4 years to whip up frothing-at-the-mouth crazies (they would lose the overt racism angle that they had with Obama, but misogyny and "EMAILZ" would probably have worked nearly as well). Plus, they could have gotten the Bernie Bros and Jill Stein's gelatinous voting blob-monsters to continue sabotaging the Left.

But they did, indeed, end up catching the car. And I suppose now it doesn't matter much if it was a cunning plan gone bad, or having rocks for brains.

I have pretty much given up assuming that there was any grand plan at all.

Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjIwRTsRIPE

This is 9 kinds of awesome. I was talking to my folks, and they were commenting that even Nixon didn't seem this doomed when his shit started to unravel.

CYNICISM AND PESSIMISM TO THE RESCUE!The only reason Flynn is making this deal, it will turn out, is because he's the only person who actually broke any laws. By the end of his testimony it will be clear that the entire Trump administration, while crooked as a cane, will all get off on technicalities, possibly with a viable way to ruin the "witch hunters'" careers, and Flynn, the only flagrantly guilty person among them, will have secured his own immunity from prosecution. Angels will weep, and the Republic will go ahead and give its last gasp and collapse through the cracks in its own Swiss-cheese system of justice.

As lovely and cynical as this is, I don't think anyone but Nunes is buying it. This is from today's committee meeting:

Quote

In a moment that stunned the hearing room, Watts flatly stated that the president himself has become a cog in such Russian measures. When asked by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, who appeared visibly dismayed, why, if Russians have long used these methods, they finally worked in this election cycle, Watts’ answer was extraordinary.

“I think this answer is very simple and is one no one is really saying in this room,” he said. Part of the reason, he went on, “is the commander in chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents.”

Besides, unless Flynn has gold standard, absolutely undeniable proof, the FBI aren't going to touch this offer. They might see what he has to say. But unless he can spill the beans on everything and offer up Trump on a silver platter, then he's not going to be taken up on his offer.

The FBI has to build a case without appearing to be targeting the President, unless they have something really fantastically credible to work with. When you come at the king, you best not miss. Flynn will be dismissed as "that guy who got fired by the President for lying" and his testimony will be tainted by that.

I really want to believe Trump is guilty of outright sedition and will spent the rest of his natural life in prison, I know the possibility of that happening is quite remote. The only reason the GOP is even following through on this "investigation" is because Trump is an outsider who rubs many of them the wrong way, and because the story is so prominent in the press that failing to go through the motions would be an obvious dereliction of duty. They managed to get four years out of Benghazi, but clearly for the GOP this investigation is like gargling battery acid. They'll wrap it up as delicately as they can, as soon as they can, and it's unlikely anything will come of it except maybe a few more people lose their jobs. Besides, Trump seems like the kind of guy who just stumbles into a plan like this and gets caught up in it by accident.

Agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation visited an office belonging to the operator of a casino on the remote U.S. island of Saipan that has attracted attention for its huge revenues, according to a local legislator and residents.

FBI personnel, accompanied by uniformed police officers, arrived Thursday morning at a local office used by Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd., the Hong Kong-based company that owns the Best Sunshine Live casino, local residents said. They stayed for several hours, with local police blocking access to the building.

Quote

Its board members include James Woolsey, who ran the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1990s and was among national-security advisers to Trump’s presidential campaign. Former FBI director Louis Freeh and Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, sit on an advisory committee, as does Haley Barbour, the ex-Mississippi governor and Republican National Committee chairman who’s now a prominent lobbyist.

Besides, unless Flynn has gold standard, absolutely undeniable proof, the FBI aren't going to touch this offer. They might see what he has to say. But unless he can spill the beans on everything and offer up Trump on a silver platter, then he's not going to be taken up on his offer.

The FBI has to build a case without appearing to be targeting the President, unless they have something really fantastically credible to work with. When you come at the king, you best not miss. Flynn will be dismissed as "that guy who got fired by the President for lying" and his testimony will be tainted by that.

Thanks for this perspective, I will be interested in your take as things progress. Maaaan, to be a fly on the wall at the FBI right now!

The inauguration of Donald Trump was a surreal experience for pretty much everyone who witnessed it, whether or not they were at the event and regardless of who they supported in the election. On the dais, the stoic presence of Hillary Clinton — whom candidate Trump had said he would send to prison if he took office — underlined the strangeness of the moment. George W. Bush, also savaged by Trump during the campaign, was there too. He gave the same reason for attending that Bill and Hillary Clinton did: to honor the peaceful transfer of power.

Bush’s endearing struggle with his poncho at the event quickly became a meme, prompting many Democrats on social media to admit that they already pined for the relative normalcy of his administration. Following Trump’s short and dire speech, Bush departed the scene and never offered public comment on the ceremony.

But, according to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump’s inaugural after leaving the dais: “That was some weird shit.” All three heard him say it.

Besides, unless Flynn has gold standard, absolutely undeniable proof, the FBI aren't going to touch this offer. They might see what he has to say. But unless he can spill the beans on everything and offer up Trump on a silver platter, then he's not going to be taken up on his offer.

The FBI has to build a case without appearing to be targeting the President, unless they have something really fantastically credible to work with. When you come at the king, you best not miss. Flynn will be dismissed as "that guy who got fired by the President for lying" and his testimony will be tainted by that.

Thanks for this perspective, I will be interested in your take as things progress. Maaaan, to be a fly on the wall at the FBI right now!

I think this is going to be a long, drawn out and weird process. And when it breaks, much like Watergate, it will be more for the coverup than for the crime.

The inauguration of Donald Trump was a surreal experience for pretty much everyone who witnessed it, whether or not they were at the event and regardless of who they supported in the election. On the dais, the stoic presence of Hillary Clinton — whom candidate Trump had said he would send to prison if he took office — underlined the strangeness of the moment. George W. Bush, also savaged by Trump during the campaign, was there too. He gave the same reason for attending that Bill and Hillary Clinton did: to honor the peaceful transfer of power.

Bush’s endearing struggle with his poncho at the event quickly became a meme, prompting many Democrats on social media to admit that they already pined for the relative normalcy of his administration. Following Trump’s short and dire speech, Bush departed the scene and never offered public comment on the ceremony.

But, according to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump’s inaugural after leaving the dais: “That was some weird shit.” All three heard him say it.

I like to think of W finally finding peace and contentment as an artist, having long given up on obtaining approval from his father.

Flynn seemed to have a different view last September when he weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

The inauguration of Donald Trump was a surreal experience for pretty much everyone who witnessed it, whether or not they were at the event and regardless of who they supported in the election. On the dais, the stoic presence of Hillary Clinton — whom candidate Trump had said he would send to prison if he took office — underlined the strangeness of the moment. George W. Bush, also savaged by Trump during the campaign, was there too. He gave the same reason for attending that Bill and Hillary Clinton did: to honor the peaceful transfer of power.

Bush’s endearing struggle with his poncho at the event quickly became a meme, prompting many Democrats on social media to admit that they already pined for the relative normalcy of his administration. Following Trump’s short and dire speech, Bush departed the scene and never offered public comment on the ceremony.

But, according to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump’s inaugural after leaving the dais: “That was some weird shit.” All three heard him say it.

I like to think of W finally finding peace and contentment as an artist, having long given up on obtaining approval from his father.

W was president when a lot of really bad shit happened, so he's got to own it.

That being said, Nigel just came up with the most heartrending epiloge any tribute could have.

W seems like a cuddly, half-drunk teddy bear in his elder years. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Even a good guy, at least compared to the monster he was portrayed as being while he was President. It's nice to see him come to terms with at least some of the suffering he caused, even if it's only for the hero class on our side of our various pointless wars. I don't blame him as the mastermind of the shitty parts of modern history, because I think he has always basically been a frat bro who's in over his head. Maybe I blame him for taking the highest office and then failing to be the kind of person who could actually wield that power with grace or effectiveness. He did a better job than I would have done I'm sure, given the things that happened on his watch that were out of anyone's control, but then I never would have wanted to be President anyway.

W seems like a cuddly, half-drunk teddy bear in his elder years. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Even a good guy, at least compared to the monster he was portrayed as being while he was President. It's nice to see him come to terms with at least some of the suffering he caused, even if it's only for the hero class on our side of our various pointless wars. I don't blame him as the mastermind of the shitty parts of modern history, because I think he has always basically been a frat bro who's in over his head. Maybe I blame him for taking the highest office and then failing to be the kind of person who could actually wield that power with grace or effectiveness. He did a better job than I would have done I'm sure, given the things that happened on his watch that were out of anyone's control, but then I never would have wanted to be President anyway.

W seems like a cuddly, half-drunk teddy bear in his elder years. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Even a good guy, at least compared to the monster he was portrayed as being while he was President. It's nice to see him come to terms with at least some of the suffering he caused, even if it's only for the hero class on our side of our various pointless wars. I don't blame him as the mastermind of the shitty parts of modern history, because I think he has always basically been a frat bro who's in over his head. Maybe I blame him for taking the highest office and then failing to be the kind of person who could actually wield that power with grace or effectiveness. He did a better job than I would have done I'm sure, given the things that happened on his watch that were out of anyone's control, but then I never would have wanted to be President anyway.

He started two wars for no good reason at all.

I haven't forgotten.

For sure. He was a terrible president, there's no doubt about that. Worse than terrible. I'm not denying that, or that the bugger has gotten off way too easy and to see him wind up as giggly old artist seems too good for him. But I don't think he was ever "evil", he was just incompetent and surrounded by lots of people with wills stronger than his who were more driven than he was. I don't know the man so I might be way off base, but it seems to me that 9/11 threw more at him than he was ready to take, and he reactive viciously and with too much reliance on familiar advisers who happened to also be war hawks, out of desperation to not be seen as fumbling "our generation's greatest challenge". He's as susceptible to viewing the world through a filter as anyone else is, and his filter was all Us vs. Them and Conservative Values™. It doesn't make any of the horrible shit he did "right", but I'm not sure he was personally capable of doing anything differently. In his art we at least see a recognition of the turmoil he caused in some lives, even if it's only the "hero" class, and comes at the exclusion of everyone else his administration harmed (in many ways worse) both domestically and abroad. He'll never be a Jimmy Carter, for sure.

There doesn't even appear to be any attempt to conceal the fact any more:Flynn offers to testify about Trumps Russian links, the very next day Wikileaks releases the CIA trove showing how they attempted to frame groups.

W seems like a cuddly, half-drunk teddy bear in his elder years. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Even a good guy, at least compared to the monster he was portrayed as being while he was President. It's nice to see him come to terms with at least some of the suffering he caused, even if it's only for the hero class on our side of our various pointless wars. I don't blame him as the mastermind of the shitty parts of modern history, because I think he has always basically been a frat bro who's in over his head. Maybe I blame him for taking the highest office and then failing to be the kind of person who could actually wield that power with grace or effectiveness. He did a better job than I would have done I'm sure, given the things that happened on his watch that were out of anyone's control, but then I never would have wanted to be President anyway.

He started two wars for no good reason at all.

I haven't forgotten.

Two wars that the UK/USA lost, which directly raised more terrorism world wide. The "lost" part never seems to get mentioned.

I can't wait to see what concept idiot chooses to wage war against. At the moment it seems to be a war on truth and/or facts.

I haven't forgotten how much the Bush presidency sucked, not at all;but now that the wars are over, I think there's something cathartic about seeing him now, just a charming old retired man.

People always go "I don't know who's scarier, Pence or Trump"... I think Trump is scarier by an order of magnitude. Traditional politicians, like Bush or Pence, play by a known set of rules. I mean, say what you will about Bush, but at his core, he wasn't motivated by vanity or petty vindictiveness the way Trump is. I knew on some level that Bush would never actually press the big red button. Pence is capable of reading a 10 page document. Weird how comforting "the evil you know" can be.

One thing I have always said in defence of Bush, against conservatives of more recent years, is that he went to pretty great lengths to try and not portray the conflict with Al-Qaeda as a civilisational conflict against Islam itself.

Bush was smarter on counter-terrorism than Sebastian Gorka, the current White House fake terrorism expert.

One thing I have always said in defence of Bush, against conservatives of more recent years, is that he went to pretty great lengths to try and not portray the conflict with Al-Qaeda as a civilisational conflict against Islam itself.

Bush was smarter on counter-terrorism than Sebastian Gorka, the current White House fake terrorism expert.

:horrormirth:That horrible moment when you realize that in a less insane universe this would be a great April Fools prank... but it's not. It's not at all.

There doesn't even appear to be any attempt to conceal the fact any more:Flynn offers to testify about Trumps Russian links, the very next day Wikileaks releases the CIA trove showing how they attempted to frame groups.

They are designed to make it appear as if the attacks are coming from another party but based on the languages the code was optimised for, it was more a case of disguise as anyone from non western culture.

The Pentagon has developed plans for an airstrike against Syrian government targets in response to this week’s apparent chemical attack by Syrian government forces, according to two U.S. military officials.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis will present the proposals to Donald Trump later today at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

One of the proposals drawn up is a “saturation strike” using dozens of cruise missiles designed to hit Syrian military targets —including military air fields — in an effort to limit future Syrian Air Force attacks on rebel positions, according to the two U.S. military officials.

The officials asked for anonymity to discuss classified plans.

The proposed strike would involve launching Tomahawk cruise missiles to overwhelm Russian air defense systems used by the Syrian military. The Russian government currently helps maintain the air defense sites and advises the Syrian military.

According to both U.S. military officials, the current proposal would likely result in Russian military deaths and mark a drastic escalation of U.S. force in Syria.

It occurs to me that this attack is conveniently timed, just as the investigation into Trump's connections with Putin is gathering steam.

Assad (presumably) makes a senseless chemical attack on a no-name town miles from the fighting, and we spank Assad, thus proving that Putin and Trump are not sweethearts.

Hm...

I'm kinda cold inside :kingmeh:... that's crazy enough to work. They cry "false flag" yet again, but with no particular target of political convenience causing their "base" to look everywhere but at the guys they trust for such stuff already to a Pavlovian level. Fuck it I'm having a beer while there's beers to be had. I think you could very well be right, goddammit!

It occurs to me that this attack is conveniently timed, just as the investigation into Trump's connections with Putin is gathering steam.

Assad (presumably) makes a senseless chemical attack on a no-name town miles from the fighting, and we spank Assad, thus proving that Putin and Trump are not sweethearts.

Could be, though it's worth noting other events that this will help distract from. Such as the Supreme court pick being forced through. Or the guy in charge of the congress russian investigation stepping down due to pressure from "left wing groups". I'm sure there will be plenty of other domestic crap that's worth trying to ignore in favour of a quick bombing or two. I wouldn't rule out internal shit in the US leading to another war abroad.

Apparently no Russian casualties, so the obvious question here is were they informed and told to GTFO of the area? It's not like US air strikes are known for avoiding collateral damage.

Reading through now, those photos from the Russian govt -- if those were missiles, they were duds and have been carted away. The damage is absurdly minimal. I've seen malfunctioning fireworks do similar damage.

Russia says that the US strikes were basically supporting IS. There's also reports of civilian casualties despite the total lack of Russian casualties. Curious.

The Syrian rebels are confirming the US line /and/ target. The EU is supportive of the strike. The UK condemns it, apparently because the EU is supportive.

EDIT: Checking that Russian news guy's Instagram is a lot more informative. That looks like missile damage now.

Russians were present at the base the US struck on Thursday night but their role was not immediately known, CNN is quoting a US defense official as saying. And Reuters news agency is reporting that US officials said they informed Russian forces ahead of the missile attacks, and that there were no strikes on sections of the base where Russians were present.

And again, Air strikes very reliable. Always hit target exactly, no history of hitting hospitals, etc. Must assume now that Russians did not hang around anywhere near the base after being told. And the obvious question is now "Was russia informed by unofficial channels prior to being officially told?" I'm betting yes, and by a number of sources.

Quote

The strike on the Shayrat airbase killed four Syrian soldiers and almost completely destroyed the facility, the UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Or?

Quote

From BBC Monitoring:

The Russian Defence Ministry says the US airstrike was ineffective, the Russian news agency Interfax reports.

More from Russian journalist Yevgeny Poddubny, who has access to the bombed airbase for the news channel Rossiya 24.

He says nine Syrian military aircraft were destroyed. The covered hangars containing the aircraft had been struck. He said the runway was not damaged but is strewn with shrapnel.

Quote

Retired air commodore with the RAF, Dai Whittingham, told the Today programme it's likely the Tomahawk missiles used were "1000lbs" worth of warhead. He said they were "long-range and extremely accurate".

Reading through now, those photos from the Russian govt -- if those were missiles, they were duds and have been carted away. The damage is absurdly minimal. I've seen malfunctioning fireworks do similar damage.

Russia says that the US strikes were basically supporting IS. There's also reports of civilian casualties despite the total lack of Russian casualties. Curious.

The Syrian rebels are confirming the US line /and/ target. The EU is supportive of the strike. The UK condemns it, apparently because the EU is supportive.

EDIT: Checking that Russian news guy's Instagram is a lot more informative. That looks like missile damage now.

UK apparently supportive.

Like I said, at the moment you can pretty much pick what you want to believe. It'll take a few days for reality to become obvious.

I'm seeing runway damage that amounts to potholes and a /single/ heavily damaged (but probably still functional after you clean up the worst of the mess) hangar surrounded by unblemished ones, runway damage released by the Russian govt and hangar by a Russian news reporter.

No source I'm reading says all the missiles hit. There's talk about them being accurate but no one's asserting they didn't miss /anyway/. No one's denying the Russian count. That's a curious little tidbit, to me.

I'm seeing runway damage that amounts to potholes and a /single/ heavily damaged (but probably still functional after you clean up the worst of the mess) hangar surrounded by unblemished ones, runway damage released by the Russian govt and hangar by a Russian news reporter.

No source I'm reading says all the missiles hit. There's talk about them being accurate but no one's asserting they didn't miss /anyway/. No one's denying the Russian count. That's a curious little tidbit, to me.

I've seen the same pictures and it is indeed odd. Fair enough, Russia/Syria will be inclined to show pathetic pictures with minimal damage, but I'm not seeing any with massive infrastructure damage. It's worth noting that a fucking runway isn't the most complex of structures to rebuild. The loss of 9-13 planes is equally laughable. You've easily spent more than any damage caused.

What should be embarrassing the piss out of the US is not only did you apparently miss well over 50% of the time you fired, it's not clear where they landed as no obvious damage has been done. It implies that over half of what you fired were just duds. And wildly inaccurate duds at that.

I could do a hell of a lot of damage with 59,000 lbs of explosive. I'm familiar with MOD facilities over here and you could comfortably fuck one up beyond operational use for 6+months with a fraction of this amount. So either the Syrian facility is built to a standard far beyond the UK (not impossible) or any missiles fired are far less effective than what they're being marketed as.

There's also the alternative that someone put a clause in the mission plan that involved "casting a wide net" to catch "escaping targets" -- considering it /was/ internationally known it was going to happen before it actually did and all, that's a line that's plausible enough most people would buy it. It's also unrealistic because we're talking fucking cruise missiles, but I'm not sure reality entirely has a say in what happens around these parts anymore. This shit runs on soap opera drama rules.

Most airfields are surrounded by dickloads of nothing (for good reason). "Casting a wide net" will ensure the majority of them land ... nowhere and damage ... nothing and achieve ... fuck all. It'd be (arguably) a way to keep Assad and Putin happy while still appearing to do anything at all worth a damn.

The only other option I can think of is they explicitly toted out the ones so behind on maintenance that they were earmarked for return to the States and/or destroy in place, which requires the fucking operators to have been moles, which is unrealistic to the point of failing even soap opera drama rules. Cruise missiles historically have an effectiveness rate that is just about consistent with their rate of use (e.g. they rarely fail because they don't get used often enough to be able to afford failure -- iirc it's something like an avg success rate of 87% or thereabouts). The US military is a bit behind the pack, the Tomahawks run an 85% success rate, but that's still way better than what we were shown here. These would need to be a completely bad lot or, as stated, ones earmarked for destruction or total refurbishment if there were THAT many duds.

Cruise missiles historically have an effectiveness rate that is just about consistent with their rate of use (e.g. they rarely fail because they don't get used often enough to be able to afford failure -- iirc it's something like an avg success rate of 87% or thereabouts). The US military is a bit behind the pack, the Tomahawks run an 85% success rate, but that's still way better than what we were shown here. These would need to be a completely bad lot or, as stated, ones earmarked for destruction or total refurbishment if there were THAT many duds.

85% success rate? That seems a little high. And if you're right, which you may very well be, raises further questions about how many misses and lack of serious damage there has been. I would assume missiles needing maintenance/refurb would not get used at all as they represent a pretty significant risk to those firing them in the first place. "US sinks own ship due to dodgy missile" is a headline the military can't stand.

So what are the other reasonable options? Someone pulled a Schindler and has been selling the US bombs without the ability to go bang? Not likely, but can't rule it totally out these days.

Cruise missiles historically have an effectiveness rate that is just about consistent with their rate of use (e.g. they rarely fail because they don't get used often enough to be able to afford failure -- iirc it's something like an avg success rate of 87% or thereabouts). The US military is a bit behind the pack, the Tomahawks run an 85% success rate, but that's still way better than what we were shown here. These would need to be a completely bad lot or, as stated, ones earmarked for destruction or total refurbishment if there were THAT many duds.

85% success rate? That seems a little high. And if you're right, which you may very well be, raises further questions about how many misses and lack of serious damage there has been. I would assume missiles needing maintenance/refurb would not get used at all as they represent a pretty significant risk to those firing them in the first place. "US sinks own ship due to dodgy missile" is a headline the military can't stand.

So what are the other reasonable options? Someone pulled a Schindler and has been selling the US bombs without the ability to go bang? Not likely, but can't rule it totally out these days.

It's my understanding that "success rate" just means "explodes", so the misses aren't relevant to that number. Essentially, 85% of the time, a Tomahawk that is fired will blow up when it hits something. I could be wrong there, I haven't read up on them in quite some time, but I'm pretty sure the number is correct (a quick Google certainly says so).

It's also my understanding that "dodgy missiles" are safer for the one firing than it might seem. Something like, there must be a successful launch for the explosives to arm, and the explosives must arm to detonate. Those details are second hand, from military personnel I know, so I can't give you any sources on those, but it makes sense from a logistics perspective -- the launchers tend to hold multiple missiles, and a single failed missile would destroy them all, along with the launcher and anyone/anything near it. That's costs in personnel, labor, materiel and (usually) vehicles. You'd think that you'd just religiously keep the dodgy ones out of circulation, but they have (again, to my understanding) fairly short maintenance cycles and spend a lot of time attached to units that may not always be able to offload them for maintenance when needed, not to mention regular human failures (someone misses the date and signs off on it anyway, etc). Safer to make sure that they won't blow up the one firing them off.

Same exact blocks of text. Probably from a book (Maybe one of the Jane's compendiums?) or a government report.

https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/tomahawk/

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These missiles achieved an 85 percent success rate.

Citation from that site: “RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk,” in IHS Jane’s Weapons: Strategic 2015-2016, ed. James C. O’Halloran (United Kingdom: IHS, 2015), 219-223. Seems like I was right. Jane's is a really, really good source for this sort of information.

Also, gonna go get a hair shirt to wear as penance for doubting Cain, who called this shit like an hour before it happened.

:cainftw: :cainftw::digtbk:

It's what I (don't) get paid the big bucks for.

The missile failure rate is interesting. Lots of people are (correctly) pointing out that this was a very Wag the Dog moment - US policy towards Syria is apparently unchanged, Russia was informed before the strike (and undoubtedly passed that info onto Syria) etc. It's also unclear what intelligence led to this base itself being struck - the White House claims it is where the chemical attack originated, but what agency made that determination, how was it made and how credible is that assessment (just last week, Trump was asking for raw intel. Did a White House off the books "intel team" pick the target, or was it a "legit" intel agency).

And on top of that, it's Syria, so everyone has every reason to lie. Trump, the Russians, the Assad govt, the rebels...it's going to be a shitshow of claims and counterclaims and disinfo.

Also, gonna go get a hair shirt to wear as penance for doubting Cain, who called this shit like an hour before it happened.

:cainftw: :cainftw::digtbk:

It's what I (don't) get paid the big bucks for.

The missile failure rate is interesting. Lots of people are (correctly) pointing out that this was a very Wag the Dog moment - US policy towards Syria is apparently unchanged, Russia was informed before the strike (and undoubtedly passed that info onto Syria) etc. It's also unclear what intelligence led to this base itself being struck - the White House claims it is where the chemical attack originated, but what agency made that determination, how was it made and how credible is that assessment (just last week, Trump was asking for raw intel. Did a White House off the books "intel team" pick the target, or was it a "legit" intel agency).

And on top of that, it's Syria, so everyone has every reason to lie. Trump, the Russians, the Assad govt, the rebels...it's going to be a shitshow of claims and counterclaims and disinfo.

The articles I've been reading say the information was confirmed by the Syrian resistance. I'd assume that the smart move here would be to say "well they told us and they're /right there watching it/ so who are we to say they lied?"

About the missile strike rate? Or that the base was the one used in the chemical attack?

The base. The missile strike rate was confirmed primarily by photos and video showing a laughably small amount of real damage (including two areas that looked like someone tossed a hand grenade down and literally pushed the shrapnel away with a broom after the smoke cleared... the concrete was scorched and had a chip mark or two FFS) and the Russian government.

*eta: Does this mean there are now a couple of dozen top secret missile guidance systems currently just lying around in the syrian desert?

Probably not. I'm not entirely clear on how it all works, but cruise missiles tend to have impact sensors and a failsafe detonator that will slag the (computer) hardware on impact if it has the chance (e.g. in the event of a dud missile). I don't know if that's the case for the Tomahawks though. Either way, Russian cruise missiles are better in this case, and the Tomahawks can't be misdirected or jammed or whatever due to how their guidance systems function (wholly internal) so getting the hardware gets them nothing much.

Ah, OK. I was more referring to the intelligence angle, truth be told, when I was talking about the lying, though the oddness there could somehow link in with the greater oddness about the targeting in the first place. There's an obvious explanation (Trump and Putin and Assad putting on a show) but I try to avoid the obvious explanations without something in the way of hard evidence to back it up.

If there wasn't photographic evidence, I'd also be interested to see which rebel group it was, because the rebels there are pretty ideologically split and not at all a united front. The SDF is a creature of Turkey, Russia backs certain militias too, you have pro-US rebels, pro-Islamist rebels, pro-Islamist rebels funded by US allies...it's a complete nightmare, and one reason, despite desperately wishing for an end to the violence in Syria, I'm skeptical about intervention leading to lasting results.

Observers said al-Sharyat Air Base was 'almost completely destroyed' by the 1,000lb warheads in a 30-minute barrage of destruction that is said to have destroyed 20 planes, a dozen aircraft hangars and a fuel depot, as well as ripped up runways.

This is not "Total destruction" by any measure. There's a few more pictures and a bit of film and it does look like the place is still largely intact and easily able to resume operations within a week or so if anyone was inclined to make that happen. What does seem to have happened is a decent size fire. The damage you can see looks a lot more like someone's had a good burn up or fire has been able to spread a reasonable distance. The planes shown under the bunkers, note bunkers still intact, look more like a good arson job than a missile strike. And 5 planes just sitting in the open are totally untouched. Which is odd again, because, you know, sitting duck, easy target, no bunker, no missile damage apparently anywhere near. Some of the bunkers are apparently "partially or fully collapsed", yet there doesn't seem to be a single picture of this. There's a video clip showing one with a hole in the roof but it's far from destroyed.

It's starting to feel like an insurance job, it's certaintly got a few parallels to one at least. Because I'd bet money I don't have that anything that got burnt up wasn't working anyway and those sat out in the open probably flew the fuck away earlier. If the deaths/injuries are limited to techs and support staff with no pilots or such, it starts looking very suspicious indeed.

You can now thank me for suffering the gibbering rantings of the mail so YOU don't have to.

See this is what happens when the news revolves around one particular cretin. It reminds me of the Diana fallout in the UK to a degree. The attention is driven almost exclusively to one event/person that the government is able to push any agenda it pleases without scrutiny. I can remember precisely no other news around that period but I know there will have been all sorts of shit pulled if I bother to look. It's literally easier than its ever been to find out too.

Which leads to the larger problems of recognizing and trying to stop silly shit now while remembering all the stupid decisions that will need to be unpicked 30+ years from now, if there is even political will/ability to do that then. Name a police/military force that has radically scaled back tactics and toys in the last 50 years. An omnipresent possibility of a terror attack now being less likely is a story you're just not reading in your lifetime. Even if that is the case.

Funny story, the guy who runs Zerohedge? His dad was a diplomat and journalist for the People's Republic of Bulgaria. He wrote for the Communist Party's own propaganda outlet...as a roving international commentator covering political and military conflicts.

If you're thinking NOC for the CSS's 1st Directorate...well, you're not the only one.

Funny story, the guy who runs Zerohedge? His dad was a diplomat and journalist for the People's Republic of Bulgaria. He wrote for the Communist Party's own propaganda outlet...as a roving international commentator covering political and military conflicts.

If you're thinking NOC for the CSS's 1st Directorate...well, you're not the only one.

*eta: Does this mean there are now a couple of dozen top secret missile guidance systems currently just lying around in the syrian desert?

Presumably they're only classified so that people won't know how bad they are.

We actually know quite a bit about their guidance systems. They can't go very far off course (due to their GPS receiver), and the newest Block 4s "phone home" with their coordinates so that if they're deviating and don't realize, they can be corrected by humans. There's even facility for mission abort in the new ones, IIRC.

They're very good. That's why this whole shitshow /stinks/. There's no way in hell that that many Tomahawk missiles get launched and less than half of them land on target. That requires unprecedented mass munitions failure or purposeful malevolence.

I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late," Trump said. "I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn't know Steve. I'm my own strategist and it wasn't like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.

*eta: Does this mean there are now a couple of dozen top secret missile guidance systems currently just lying around in the syrian desert?

Presumably they're only classified so that people won't know how bad they are.

We actually know quite a bit about their guidance systems. They can't go very far off course (due to their GPS receiver), and the newest Block 4s "phone home" with their coordinates so that if they're deviating and don't realize, they can be corrected by humans. There's even facility for mission abort in the new ones, IIRC.

They're very good. That's why this whole shitshow /stinks/. There's no way in hell that that many Tomahawk missiles get launched and less than half of them land on target. That requires unprecedented mass munitions failure or purposeful malevolence.

On the other hand, they've been on the shelf for a while, and anyone with hands-on experience with munitions can tell you what that means. Also, more complexity means more failure points.

Looks like North Korea has missiles that can, at least in theory, hit things now and aren't just repainted SCUDs with parts from Pakistan and China.

Cue:

a) China desperately trying to keep the missiles pointed away from itself by promoting "dialogue"b) South Korea and Japan going "well, fuck, but we we're always in range"c) the US media shitting its pants, causingd) Trump to shit his pants, causinge) a further racheting of tensions with North Korea, possibly by adding ships to the naval task force already on its way to Korean waters and putting soldiers on the DMZ and in Japan on high alert, leading tof) a whole lot of stupidity.

So the annual NK sabre rattling is going to be even funnier than usual then?

Last night my feed was full of North Korea and arms control specialists going "ohhhh FUCK". Not paraphrased.

So it's going to be quite possibly /very/ /very/ funny, for radioactive values of "funny".

Let us not forget the chemical. VX is known to cause perma-GRIN. Sarin will choke you out, but as I hear it VX causes a sort of neurological signal cascade that causes contortion and muscular contraction strong enough to crush organs, break bones, and this can pull the facial muscles into... new places.

He killed his own brother with that shit. Wanna bet he's a full blown psycho with a god complex hopped up on meth and just itching to re-experience his fratricidal rush?

I'd like to think I'm wrong here, but my guts haven't been able to put it to rest since I heard HOW his bro died. It's always been amusing to me how little info actually makes it into "the news". Wouldn't want anybody to panic. It's bad for national security.

I make a pointed effort to avoid thinking about VX and it never works for long.

Yeah. I'm just not even able to approach some of the things I think about with my councilor, whom I like and want to see continue being all functional and helping folks. The devil really IS in the details, and fuck that guy.

I mean (especially since their test yesterday failed) North Korea is mostly likely to whack Japan in any actual conflict anyway. Whacking South Korea would ruin any plans for reconciliation or indeed taking control of the South, at least outside of the DMZ (sure, you'd level Seoul. Then the rest of the country would engage in protracted insurgency for FOREVER, and South Korea is like 50% hills and mountains, so have fun with that). Not to mention even their shitty SCUDs can, most likely, hit Japan (somewhere).

But it does significantly alter the strategic calculus for states further away - Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan etc. And that does exponentially expand the amount of trouble Kim Jong-Un can cause.

So the annual NK sabre rattling is going to be even funnier than usual then?

Last night my feed was full of North Korea and arms control specialists going "ohhhh FUCK". Not paraphrased.

Struggling to be that level of concerned. I'd suggest that after the usual April display things will go back to the normal standoff. I can't see the US being able to organise their shit to deal with it in an effective way anytime soon and sk support would be needed which is unlikely to occur due to their own internal shitshow, if the urge to do so was even there.

Realistically, sk has the most to lose as an easy local target so I'm betting you'll find fuck all support in the wider region too.

What I'm wondering is what horrible shit will occur internally in the US while bad haircuts posture at each other.

I mean (especially since their test yesterday failed) North Korea is mostly likely to whack Japan in any actual conflict anyway. Whacking South Korea would ruin any plans for reconciliation or indeed taking control of the South, at least outside of the DMZ (sure, you'd level Seoul. Then the rest of the country would engage in protracted insurgency for FOREVER, and South Korea is like 50% hills and mountains, so have fun with that). Not to mention even their shitty SCUDs can, most likely, hit Japan (somewhere).

But it does significantly alter the strategic calculus for states further away - Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan etc. And that does exponentially expand the amount of trouble Kim Jong-Un can cause.

Which leaves the region in general to push containment/appeasement then? China, sk, Japan will all be against attacking, Vietnam/Cambodia wouldn't help out of principle so your allies in an attack effort are who? UK, Australia and a few island nations? This is not a strategy likey to end in any kind of success and everyone involved surely knows this?

BBC just reporting "china and us working on strategy". Still skeptical. The two have radically different ideas about how to proceed and neither can back down or concede much from their stances without huge loss of face. If the US takes any offensive actions without Chinese support it basically proves nk propaganda correct. Which leaves the chances of pulling the hearts and minds shit dead in the dirt. Any attempts to reach out to the populace are doomed to fail. And it's not like the US has been particularly successful in that regard anywhere else in the world, ever.

Vietnam is actually on very good terms with the US nowadays. They're concerned about China, so the US is lavishing arms on them and they're effectively a US ally in all but name.

South Korea and Japan are also quite reliant on US military protection, so if the US is hellbent on a military strike, they will fall in line publicly.

The bigger issue is China. They dont have any real influence over North Korea anymore, not without using brute force methods - like cutting off food/fuel - which are likely to backfire on them and make them a more likely target for North Korean craziness. China likes having North Korea as a buffer and as a potential threat against US allies in the region, but they're very aware of how unpredictable they can be, and how weak their influence over them really is. But on the other hand, China profits from overall international stability, which North Korea is not contributing to. China would also like to be able to access the mineral rich North Korea at some future point and profit from its mineral wealth - presumably as some kind of trade deal, development and access to international markets for raw goods kind of thing, which would see China assuming it's historically traditional role of "big brother" to (North) Korea.

But that's putting a potentially bright future against a more uncertain present. And of course attempts to overthrow the entire regime would no doubt end in a lawless zone of failed state violence right on China's border. So China will be risk-adverse in this scenario.

Of course, it is entirely possible North Korea is doing this as some sort of bargaining chip, and wants to see what China will offer in return for decommissioning the missile program or whatever. It's possible. However, they do confer a sizeable military advanatage on North Korea, reliability aside, and given North Korea is basically run by the generals, this may outweigh all other considerations.

I suspect if we do see military action here by the US, it will be some kind of limited (ish) strike, to try and destroy their currently existing weapons and infrastructure to create them. Then the work would be to find out who is helping them develop this program (almost certainly Pakistan and Burma. I'm calling it now) and prevent them from supplying them with replacement parts.

But who the fuck knows what Trump is thinking at any given moment. Not even Trump, I suspect.

I would have said that a US strike against nk would be out of the question, but I think the priority has shifted or will to prevent nk from setting a precedent by asserting their sovereignty in this fashion.

As far as their rocket technology goes, I'd love for it to come out that each failure was concealment of the debugging of various systems in isolation, and that they are much further along than we'd believe.

I suspect if we do see military action here by the US, it will be some kind of limited (ish) strike, to try and destroy their currently existing weapons and infrastructure to create them. Then the work would be to find out who is helping them develop this program (almost certainly Pakistan and Burma. I'm calling it now) and prevent them from supplying them with replacement parts.

But who the fuck knows what Trump is thinking at any given moment. Not even Trump, I suspect.

Good call on Burma. I don't understand Pakistan, but understand if you can't go into further detail there.

I suspect if we do see military action here by the US, it will be some kind of limited (ish) strike, to try and destroy their currently existing weapons and infrastructure to create them. Then the work would be to find out who is helping them develop this program (almost certainly Pakistan and Burma. I'm calling it now) and prevent them from supplying them with replacement parts.

But who the fuck knows what Trump is thinking at any given moment. Not even Trump, I suspect.

Doubt even idiot is stupid/bold enough to attack anything without explicit support and assistance from China which he won't get due to reasons you outlined. The risk/reward just doesn't stack up to make it worthwhile. Would guess quality Intel is non existent so even picking targets becomes a huge challenge, chance of hitting civilians is massive and plays directly to nk propaganda goals.

Burma/Pakistan, I'd agree to be like supporters, would not rule out Russian technical assistance. Have a hunch on Malaysia as intermediary supplier. Would not be surprised at Iran links due to common problems with the US and "enemy of my enemy" thinking/similar long term goals.

I was interested if North Korea's meth and heroin operation had a Pakistani component, given the role of the ISI in transferring it out of Afghanistan, but apparently it comes from over the border in China. Which would make more sense.

Idiot's daughter Ivanka was met with groans as she defended her father's attitude towards women at the G20 women's summit in Berlin.The First Daughter was taking part in a panel discussion about female entrepreneurs alongside German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and IMF chief Christine Lagarde.But the audience bristled at her praise for the US president.The event is part of the G20 women's summit.An audible groan went up as she told the room her father was a "tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive".

Quote

"He encouraged me and enabled me to thrive. I grew up in a house where there were no barriers to what I could accomplish," she added.

The missing words here are "at the expense of other families. More accurate would be something like: "I was able to thrive and have no barriers because Idiot was a relentless non-paying dick to countless contractors and firms and I got to use that money to do whatever I wanted to instead.".

Not to mention "my rich father let me do what I wanted" is not a policy position.

Bingo.

Hold on a minute, it gets funnier:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-budget-2018-state-department-cut-office-global-womens-issues-oxfam-ivanka-a7701631.html

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Donald Trump plans to strip all funding from a State Department bureau that promotes the rights of women around the world, it has emerged.

Oxfam America led criticism of the move, saying said cutting funds for the Office of Global Women’s Issues would have “dire consequences for millions of people, as well as our global standing”.

Documents first leaked to Foreign Policy showed plans to reduce the office’s 2016 budget of $8.25 million (£6.43 million) to zero in 2018, though the President’s budget will still have to make it past Congress.

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Leaked budget documents show the President also intends to strip funding from a series of other soft-power and scientific programmes within the State Department - including slashing two-thirds of the Bureau for Food Security's resources, and 95 per cent of funds for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

The $2.5 million budget for USAID's work with blind children is also set to disappear, according to the leaked documents. USAID is the agency that administers American foreign aid.

Nothing too surprising, we all knew it was coming. I'm just finding it hilarious that he couldn't supress this for a week or so and the result is effectively throwing his own (alleged) daughter under the bus.

I say alleged because I've not seen any DNA tests so I have no proof these relations are in fact related to him. I'd put good money on at least one not being. You know which one I mean.

The best part is, he probably has no idea what these agencies do. He's had to have North Korea explained to him by the Chinese (lol) and had NATO explained to him by his own military and other NATO leaders before he admitted he was wrong and that he was speaking from a position of ignorance on the topics. He'd rather bloviate and make up policy based on "gut" than take the time to learn about anything that he might actually have to deal with.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ouI5KcyHfE (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ouI5KcyHfE)This is such a beautiful song I hate to do this, but I had to get the buzzing worm out of my ear. Parody demands sacrifice.

100 days, 100 nightsOf President Trump100 days, 100 nightsOf President TrumpAnd his little handsGrabbing things not his own

You know that TrumpIs known to blow"Bigly wins"Yes we knowBut a day cameWhen his blow, his blow ran low

Yes it didHe maybe orangeHe maybe loudShouts at folksYou don't like

But you knew one day his blow would run low

100 days, 100 nightsOf President Trump 100 days, 100 nightsOf President TrumpAnd his little handsGrabbing things not his own

Wait a minuteMaybe he needs it all slowed down just a littleThe job's hard

This President Told folks thingsMade them feelGood to be meanNobody thoughtHe would have won Then he didOh yes he didThat one dayWe up and votedFor that clownFace all orange and round100 days of this shit, just the start

100 days, 100 nightsOf President Trump100 days, 100 nightsOf that President TrumpAnd them little handsGrabbing things not his own

KARL: I want to ask you about two things the President has said on related issues. First of all, there was what he said about opening up the libel laws. Tweeting “the failing New York Times has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change the libel laws?” That would require, as I understand it, a constitutional amendment. Is he really going to pursue that? Is that something he wants to pursue?

PRIEBUS: I think it’s something that we’ve looked at. How that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story. But when you have articles out there that have no basis or fact and we’re sitting here on 24/7 cable companies writing stories about constant contacts with Russia and all these other matters—

KARL: So you think the President should be able to sue the New York Times for stories he doesn’t like?

PRIEBUS: Here’s what I think. I think that newspapers and news agencies need to be more responsible with how they report the news. I am so tired.

KARL: I don’t think anybody would disagree with that. It’s about whether or not the President should have a right to sue them.

PRIEBUS: And I already answered the question. I said this is something that is being looked at. But it’s something that as far as how it gets executed, where we go with it, that’s another issue.

Idiots staff again showing themselves up. I do hope a very expensive lawyer explains to them very slowly that it's not libel when you're reporting facts. Or for entertainment purposes, which I understand to be one of the main reasons fox insists it isn't reporting news.

In vaguely related news, Alex Jones lost his divorce battle after pulling the "it's all an act" card. Which is going to make anything he says even more worthless in the future. I hope.

Idiots staff again showing themselves up. I do hope a very expensive lawyer explains to them very slowly that it's not libel when you're reporting facts. Or for entertainment purposes, which I understand to be one of the main reasons fox insists it isn't reporting news.

In vaguely related news, Alex Jones lost his divorce battle after pulling the "it's all an act" card. Which is going to make anything he says even more worthless in the future. I hope.

"It's not what you say it's how you say it" is now literally so true that the fate of civilization as we know it hangs in the balance.

Also, the fact that the president is now "looking into" a constitutional amendment in order to get rid of the freedom of speech because his royal ego cannot handle criticism, even criticism based on fact, should sound certain alarms. Can't necessarily hear those alarms above all the other alarms going off, but still.

A President advocating legal restrictions on criticizing the administration should be taken as a direct threat to democracy, but unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans don't really understand or care.

A President advocating legal restrictions on criticizing the administration should be taken as a direct threat to democracy, but unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans don't really understand or care.

It's a little worse than that, around 50% probably agree with idiot and think it should be dealt with immediately.

I would be very surprised if you told me more than 50% of americans even know the difference between slander and libel. I'm doubtful even 10% of the UK population can.

Also, the fact that the president is now "looking into" a constitutional amendment in order to get rid of the freedom of speech because his royal ego cannot handle criticism, even criticism based on fact, should sound certain alarms. Can't necessarily hear those alarms above all the other alarms going off, but still.

This is the future I was warned about promised by Phillip K Dick.

And it demonstrates the value of the opposition chewing on it's own skin and screeching that the other side of the left are the worst people ever.

America earned this shit. The right by actively wanting it, and the left by being more concerning with attention-whoring than in stopping it.

A disgustingly large percentage of Americans now openly identify with their nationalist bigotry more strongly than with the supposed ideological foundations of this country. It's why the moderates and the liberals are so off balance. We* have spent a long time convincing ourselves that "patriots" must be susceptible to an appeal to the better sides of "American" idealism -- that equality, progress, and liberty must be their intention, it's just that their fervent conservatism is just a misguided approach to these. Well, as it happens, not so much really. The hard-right are now reveling in their newfound freedom from having to so much as pay lip service to such ideals. It was everything we could not believe because it was too horrible to fathom.

If only we had actually listened to the entire classes of people who have been screaming about this for fifty years.

* "We" in this context means all of us comfortable and highly intelligent "Liberals" who always knew for sure that history was just a long march in a straight line toward Utopia.

A disgustingly large percentage of Americans now openly identify with their nationalist bigotry more strongly than with the supposed ideological foundations of this country. It's why the moderates and the liberals are so off balance. We* have spent a long time convincing ourselves that "patriots" must be susceptible to an appeal to the better sides of "American" idealism -- that equality, progress, and liberty must be their intention, it's just that their fervent conservatism is just a misguided approach to these. Well, as it happens, not so much really. The hard-right are now reveling in their newfound freedom from having to so much as pay lip service to such ideals. It was everything we could not believe because it was too horrible to fathom.

If only we had actually listened to the entire classes of people who have been screaming about this for fifty years.

* "We" in this context means all of us comfortable and highly intelligent "Liberals" who always knew for sure that history was just a long march in a straight line toward Utopia.

I think my years of ranting place me outside of the "we" category. I knew this shit was going to happen, and hollered about it right here 15 years ago.

I don't think this makes me smarter or more insightful, just more pessimistic and misanthropic...And even MY doomsaying turned out to be idiotically optimistic.

And I will go on record here and now as saying it isn't going to improve. The smart liberals are too busy shitting in their own nest to be bothered and the other side is the problem.

But at least we can all wear smug grins and say "I told you so", which has to count for something.

A disgustingly large percentage of Americans now openly identify with their nationalist bigotry more strongly than with the supposed ideological foundations of this country. It's why the moderates and the liberals are so off balance. We* have spent a long time convincing ourselves that "patriots" must be susceptible to an appeal to the better sides of "American" idealism -- that equality, progress, and liberty must be their intention, it's just that their fervent conservatism is just a misguided approach to these. Well, as it happens, not so much really. The hard-right are now reveling in their newfound freedom from having to so much as pay lip service to such ideals. It was everything we could not believe because it was too horrible to fathom.

If only we had actually listened to the entire classes of people who have been screaming about this for fifty years.

* "We" in this context means all of us comfortable and highly intelligent "Liberals" who always knew for sure that history was just a long march in a straight line toward Utopia.

I think my years of ranting place me outside of the "we" category. I knew this shit was going to happen, and hollered about it right here 15 years ago.

I don't think this makes me smarter or more insightful, just more pessimistic and misanthropic...And even MY doomsaying turned out to be idiotically optimistic.

And I will go on record here and now as saying it isn't going to improve. The smart liberals are too busy shitting in their own nest to be bothered and the other side is the problem.

But at least we can all wear smug grins and say "I told you so", which has to count for something.

I don't disagree we should have done more. But I am not smart enough to know what "more" consists of.

Jeff Sessions has decided to just ignore freedom of speech entirely (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/2/15518574/desiree-fairooz-justice-department):

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These details are all salient for the legal case, but it’s important not to lose sight of the big picture here: The federal government is literally prosecuting someone for laughing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Justice Department — which Sessions now leads as attorney general — is doing the prosecuting when the laughter was directed at its leader. At the very least, it’s not a good look for the top law enforcement agency in the country.

A President advocating legal restrictions on criticizing the administration should be taken as a direct threat to democracy, but unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans don't really understand or care.

It's a little worse than that, around 50% probably agree with idiot and think it should be dealt with immediately.

I would be very surprised if you told me more than 50% of americans even know the difference between slander and libel. I'm doubtful even 10% of the UK population can.

Thank you for correcting a statement that didn't need correction in order to agree with me while looking like you're contradicting me, I guess?

A President advocating legal restrictions on criticizing the administration should be taken as a direct threat to democracy, but unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans don't really understand or care.

It's a little worse than that, around 50% probably agree with idiot and think it should be dealt with immediately.

I would be very surprised if you told me more than 50% of americans even know the difference between slander and libel. I'm doubtful even 10% of the UK population can.

Thank you for correcting a statement that didn't need correction in order to agree with me while looking like you're contradicting me, I guess?

The quantification was for comedy, the actual point was how many people don't actually know the difference between slander and libel and use the terms interchangeably.

Trump reiterated the need for Israelis and Palestinians to broker a peace through direct negotiations and called on Palestinian leaders to "speak in a unified voice against incitement to violence and hate.""There's such hatred, but hopefully there won't be such hatred for very long," Trump said, speaking alongside Abbas in the Roosevelt Room.

Continuing a trend of other world leaders teaching idiot how their part of the world works, Abbas appears to have had to explain the Palestine problem.

It's a good job he's not appointed a diplomat who thinks the exact opposite.... oh.

If there's one good thing that could possibly come from the Trump Presidency, it would be if Trumpsters get just a glimmer of an idea that international politics are hard.

Most of them, it seems, think something along the lines of "I tell you wut, we just need to git in thurr an be all like 'Hey yall, we're Amurrica and this is how it is (PEW! PEW!)' an then they'll be all like 'oh shit, yall! Amurrica's back, we better straighten up an kwit screwin around! An we'll be all like "Hell yeah, they's a new shurruf in town, and it's US! (Ptoo... Ding!)" An we'll git in there and Git er Dunn an then everyboddy will respek the hell outta us"

So, in that sense, I'm kind of behind Trump's "Golly gee whizz. This is more complicated that I realized." message.

I guess you could say I do have an ethical problem if this is the shit you find humorous. That's fear induced laughter. Violence seems way more appropriate.

You really don't get the laugh I'm talking about. It's not a happy, healthy laugh. It's the kind of laugh you can only have after bitterness and cynicism is beaten into your very bones and then beaten out again, then beaten back in again to teach you the real lesson.

Please, by all means show me something you find funny and teach me your ways. You've utterly failed to amuse me so far but I have faith in you.

If there's one good thing that could possibly come from the Trump Presidency, it would be if Trumpsters get just a glimmer of an idea that international politics are hard.

Most of them, it seems, think something along the lines of "I tell you wut, we just need to git in thurr an be all like 'Hey yall, we're Amurrica and this is how it is (PEW! PEW!)' an then they'll be all like 'oh shit, yall! Amurrica's back, we better straighten up an kwit screwin around! An we'll be all like "Hell yeah, they's a new shurruf in town, and it's US! (Ptoo... Ding!)" An we'll git in there and Git er Dunn an then everyboddy will respek the hell outta us"

So, in that sense, I'm kind of behind Trump's "Golly gee whizz. This is more complicated that I realized." message.

Fetch the wagon and the hose, we've got ourselves an optimist here.

Anyway, I disagree. This would involve people absorbing new information which contradicts their worldview. The chances of this happening are similar to my next fart being a full rendition of the works of Brahms.

If there's one good thing that could possibly come from the Trump Presidency, it would be if Trumpsters get just a glimmer of an idea that international politics are hard.

Most of them, it seems, think something along the lines of "I tell you wut, we just need to git in thurr an be all like 'Hey yall, we're Amurrica and this is how it is (PEW! PEW!)' an then they'll be all like 'oh shit, yall! Amurrica's back, we better straighten up an kwit screwin around! An we'll be all like "Hell yeah, they's a new shurruf in town, and it's US! (Ptoo... Ding!)" An we'll git in there and Git er Dunn an then everyboddy will respek the hell outta us"

So, in that sense, I'm kind of behind Trump's "Golly gee whizz. This is more complicated that I realized." message.

Fetch the wagon and the hose, we've got ourselves an optimist here.

Anyway, I disagree. This would involve people absorbing new information which contradicts their worldview. The chances of this happening are similar to my next fart being a full rendition of the works of Brahms.

Fersure, man, Fersure.

So far, the only actionable route that I have seen to take comes about due to my observation that a sizeable chunk of those people also believe that medicine is a scam, and that you can treat cancer, heart disease, diabeetus, lupus... etc, with some concoction consisting of honey, garlic, ginger, dandelions, vinegar, and whatever other shit they can find in their yard. I've been encouraging them to stop taking their bullshit pills, and drop their health insurance, and just drink honey ginger dandelion vinegar instead.

I have no way of knowing if it's working or not, but hopefully I've killed a couple of them by now.

After you've had your chuckle and you ask yourself And then? following it up with more of the same is just that; watching yourself being dismantled by remoras who've realized they can eat more than cast off waste

After you've had your chuckle and you ask yourself And then? following it up with more of the same is just that; watching yourself being dismantled by remoras who've realized they can eat more than cast off waste

Oh, I am wounded, WOUNDED. With this nonsensical mess of shit you are really spoiling me.

I don't think you get that the only thing that laughter gets you is to be put in the category of non-factor along with the audience of colbert, noah, the British nerd and the rest. You've become the laugh track of the big bang theory.

After you've had your chuckle and you ask yourself And then? following it up with more of the same is just that; watching yourself being dismantled by remoras who've realized they can eat more than cast off waste

Oh, I am wounded, WOUNDED. With this nonsensical mess of shit you are really spoiling me.

I don't think you get that the only thing that laughter gets you is to be put in the category of non-factor along with the audience of colbert, noah, the British nerd and the rest. You've become the laugh track of the big bang theory.

Dear fellow, I'm not sure you're able to understand quite how wrong you are.

Laughing a lung up at something is a holy rite(tm pending) and you're going to remain incomplete until you learn it.

While Nero fiddled, The ancient order of HA HA was born. We Laughed at the plagues. We laughed at Napoleon. And again at Napoleon. And again at Napoleon. We laugh every time someone marches at Moscow in the winter. What can we say beyond certain hats are amusing? We Laugh at the 3 Stooges, Auschwitz and the continuing decisions to throw nuclear bombs around for testing purposes. We Laugh at Tommy Cooper's last show. We Laugh at the ways of Clinton Clifford and Little Larry. We Laugh at corruption and watch to see who isn't laughing because that's where the bribes went. We laugh at how much asbestos is in your house and workplace right now. We laugh at radioactive clocks which are still more common than you may think. The constant appearance of HA HA ONLY SERIOUS is everywhere if you know where to look. Just look at anything, you'll find it.

Sitting there with your straight face hanging out may work for you. If dying of a heart attack at 30-odd is your goal. By all means let these things be VERY SERIOUS for you. That's not an entirely bad thing but by doing so you give them a level of importance they quite frankly don't deserve.

Power can suffer practically anything apart from people's laughter. Do you think idiot hates the media because it takes him seriously? The cretin hates SNL because people laugh at a caricature of him. It undermines his very sense of self as a WEALTHY IMPORTANT PERSON. It kicks his inner child and reminds them that they were once a small screaming human with no control over his bowels. And he's close to the other end of the scale now so that's a serious worry for him. One of the last posts was specifically about prosecuting someone FOR laughing. That alone should give you an understanding of how much power hates HA HA.

The world is very large and complex. I can affect and change a relatively tiny part of it. Even with a couple of lottery wins tomorrow, I would still only be able to change a tiny fraction of it. But yet with modern technology, I can know about vast parts of it. And I'll be FUCKED BLUE if you're telling me not to laugh at it.

Because you've got to laugh at all of it. Dictators with toupees and crazy ideas are fucking hilarious. People acting in vast numbers against their own best interests is downright hysterical. The determination of hordes of idiots wanting to be the boot that stamps on others is a god-damn riot. The only reaction these things deserve is a solid HA HA directly to the face.

So please, take your humourless arse outside and laugh in somethings face. It's liberating, if you have the balls to do so. Or you can sit there and fret about how very serious and sad it all is and try and work out what to do. Here's the thing though, one of us will be having a fucking good time.

Probably me, because I'll be laughing sputum and spittle into your goddamn face. And then I'll laugh at your reaction too for good measure.

No. You're helping by laughing. You've already transcended the entire situation of systemic institutional violence, corruption, and all of that.

Yep, pretty much. I teach others how to do so too for exorbitant fees. So what are you doing? Boring the evils of the world to death one by one? Keeping Cthulhu from rising by droning in monotone? Random vigilante violence?

Seriously, what have you got to offer? Because you're making it clear whatever it is, isn't funny.

I don't think you get that the only thing that laughter gets you is to be put in the category of non-factor along with the audience of colbert, noah, the British nerd and the rest. You've become the laugh track of the big bang theory.

Jesus, I bet you're fun at parties.

You know, those things you'd get invited to if you weren't such a twatty killjoy.

I don't think you get that the only thing that laughter gets you is to be put in the category of non-factor along with the audience of colbert, noah, the British nerd and the rest. You've become the laugh track of the big bang theory.

Jesus, I bet you're fun at parties.

You know, those things you'd get invited to if you weren't such a twatty killjoy.

Sorry your words are garbled over the self-aggrandizing meta-ironic autofellatio

At least 50% of the people with the "correct" worldview are such twunts that it becomes very difficult to care about "winning" when it just means more of the same with different window dressing.

I mean yeah, systemic oppression and violence are terrible things but you know what else is terrible? Boring self-righteousness. And frankly, if I've got a gun to my head I'm not choosing boring self-righteousness over systemic violence and oppression.

I commit more violence every time I take my morning dump than you've probably ever managed in your entire life and I'm barely in the middle of the pack around here in that respect. Some of these guys break out their own teeth when they get bored and there's nobody more deserving around.

I commit more violence every time I take my morning dump than you've probably ever managed in your entire life and I'm barely in the middle of the pack around here in that respect. Some of these guys break out their own teeth when they get bored and there's nobody more deserving around.

"I laugh impotently while getting fucked and when I'm not doing that I destroy myself in response to violence"

See, I take all of this /very/ seriously. Deathly seriously, even. I do the research and put in the work and make sure I'm doing the /right thing/. I worry about ethics and morality more on a given day than the vast, vast majority of humans who have (who will EVER) live have in their entire lives. I worry, I get anxious, I stress, I drive myself /fucking batty/. Seriously.

And then I cackle like a methed up hooligan and start throwing rocks at cars because by fucking god if I don't do something stupid I'll be this nosy self-absorbed cunt over here, telling other people about my ethical conclusions and leaning on them to DO THE RIGHT THING OR ELSE THEY'RE FUCKING AWFUL. That shit? That's just another part of Them. That's the part of Them that They've automated, put in gear. The part They normally don't need to say out loud because pompous fuckmissiles will do it for Them and They can avoid direct blame. It's the part beaten into the heads of kids who do not, can not know any better -- not so they'll learn now but so they'll fall in with the jackboots when the Great Headstomp comes around.

Mithridates, you have missed the entire point of Discordia. Discordia has no room for people who can't dress up for the disco (yeah, the dead one) and no room for people who can't laugh themselves bloodshot and shitting themselves over all this fucking INJUSTICE. You have become the very Greyface the Principia Discordia warned about. There's a traditional response to it, but I just woke up and haven't really slept enough and you really just are not worth it. It's easier to give you a reply in as close to your language as I can manage and hope, potentially, you get the sudden urge to fuck off -- or maybe to laugh a little before you become one of Them.

Not really. Its as wide (or narrow, depending on your perspective) as its always been. There's just been a bit of re-branding here and there so it feels new.

If I were going to make the proportion of Horrormirth into a law, it'd be something like, "|horror|+|mirth|=horrormirth".

I should probably explain that formula.

There's a middle ground where horrible things aren't very funny. A good example of this is cancer, AIDS, etc -- it's rare enough that you don't need to laugh at it to survive with your brain intact, but common enough that it doesn't seem right to laugh at it to make light of your own eventual horrible demise.

There's also a middle ground where funny things being real isn't particularly horrible: take the Weird as an example. Our Weird, that is. Harmless jakes and pranks that leave you feeling, maybe the world isn't what it's made out to be after all?

But when funny is either real low or real high, it gets more horrible, and vice versa. So the two "elements" of horrormirth are both absolute values.

This means essentially that the lowest value of horrormirth is 0. And as the world gets more horrible (or if it gets really non-horrible), that goes up, and the same is true of it getting funnier or less funny.

I'd say this world is pretty fucking horrible, and rapidly declining. And the Funny we got around is definitely Horrible in some way. (I can't tell which direction it's going, but does it /really/ matter if it's not keeping pace with the Bad Hair with Good Values™?) Therefore, Horrormirth has Increased.

Further proof:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/sean-spicer-donald-trump-mexican-border-wall-definition-white-house-reporters-press-corps-funding-a7717196.html

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Sean Spicer has been drawn into a public row with reporters over whether Donald Trump’s vision of a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border is actually just a fence.

Quote

Charlie Spiering, whose employer Breitbart has prolifically supported Mr Trump, asked why the President was not “fighting for the wall he promised” as funding proposals were turned down in a government-wide budget.

Quote

The row came day after the press secretary walked out of his own briefing without answering any questions, as incredulous reporters called out “Sean, come on Sean!”.

And finally:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-nepotism-criticism-eric-trump-family-a7679101.html

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Eric Trump, President Donald Trump's son, defended his father against accusations of family bias by calling nepotism “a beautiful thing.”

Quote

Eric extended his praise for nepotism to the White House, commending the influential role his sister, Ivanka, plays in his father’s administration.

“I think the beautiful thing about family is you play on a little bit of a different dynamic,” he said, “and once in a while you can pull them aside and say: ‘No disrespect but you might want to think about this or maybe you crossed the line here.’"

Worth noting that we've seen no DNA testing so we can't be sure this is actually idiots son. Would be nice to see a test, which will probably be negative on at least one of these alleged kids, and then see how long they keep their "jobs".

See, I take all of this /very/ seriously. Deathly seriously, even. I do the research and put in the work and make sure I'm doing the /right thing/. I worry about ethics and morality more on a given day than the vast, vast majority of humans who have (who will EVER) live have in their entire lives. I worry, I get anxious, I stress, I drive myself /fucking batty/. Seriously.

And then I cackle like a methed up hooligan and start throwing rocks at cars because by fucking god if I don't do something stupid I'll be this nosy self-absorbed cunt over here, telling other people about my ethical conclusions and leaning on them to DO THE RIGHT THING OR ELSE THEY'RE FUCKING AWFUL. That shit? That's just another part of Them. That's the part of Them that They've automated, put in gear. The part They normally don't need to say out loud because pompous fuckmissiles will do it for Them and They can avoid direct blame. It's the part beaten into the heads of kids who do not, can not know any better -- not so they'll learn now but so they'll fall in with the jackboots when the Great Headstomp comes around.

Mithridates, you have missed the entire point of Discordia. Discordia has no room for people who can't dress up for the disco (yeah, the dead one) and no room for people who can't laugh themselves bloodshot and shitting themselves over all this fucking INJUSTICE. You have become the very Greyface the Principia Discordia warned about. There's a traditional response to it, but I just woke up and haven't really slept enough and you really just are not worth it. It's easier to give you a reply in as close to your language as I can manage and hope, potentially, you get the sudden urge to fuck off -- or maybe to laugh a little before you become one of Them.

This echoes an interesting point someone mentioned recently - the PD itself was heavy on the Funny but the BIP was more on the serious side.

As horror increases is it important (or possible) for mirth to increase proportionally or does mirth fall as horror rises?

Is there actually more horror now than in the 70s? I don't know - I wasn't around back then.

As Junkenstein said, they are constantly in proportion to each other. I'd say the horror is the greater of the two at any given time, because the funny often (especially in the past) is itself horrible as the baseline. (For instance: consider that a popular "gag gift" of the 1900s or thereabouts was a little box with a spring loaded button that concealed a rusty needle.)

But as the horror rises so must the mirth, because there is a related equation which is "T=horrorseriousness", where T is the tendency to lose your mind/sense of proportion in some fashion. If you can't laugh AND it's all awful, you are at risk.

So for a necessarily sane mind it's something like, "horror=mirth+c" where c is the constant value of human shitheadedness.

As Junkenstein said, they are constantly in proportion to each other. I'd say the horror is the greater of the two at any given time, because the funny often (especially in the past) is itself horrible as the baseline. (For instance: consider that a popular "gag gift" of the 1900s or thereabouts was a little box with a spring loaded button that concealed a rusty needle.)

I don't think you get that the only thing that laughter gets you is to be put in the category of non-factor along with the audience of colbert, noah, the British nerd and the rest. You've become the laugh track of the big bang theory.

Dear fellow, I'm not sure you're able to understand quite how wrong you are.

Laughing a lung up at something is a holy rite(tm pending) and you're going to remain incomplete until you learn it.

While Nero fiddled, The ancient order of HA HA was born. We Laughed at the plagues. We laughed at Napoleon. And again at Napoleon. And again at Napoleon. We laugh every time someone marches at Moscow in the winter. What can we say beyond certain hats are amusing? We Laugh at the 3 Stooges, Auschwitz and the continuing decisions to throw nuclear bombs around for testing purposes. We Laugh at Tommy Cooper's last show. We Laugh at the ways of Clinton Clifford and Little Larry. We Laugh at corruption and watch to see who isn't laughing because that's where the bribes went. We laugh at how much asbestos is in your house and workplace right now. We laugh at radioactive clocks which are still more common than you may think. The constant appearance of HA HA ONLY SERIOUS is everywhere if you know where to look. Just look at anything, you'll find it.

Sitting there with your straight face hanging out may work for you. If dying of a heart attack at 30-odd is your goal. By all means let these things be VERY SERIOUS for you. That's not an entirely bad thing but by doing so you give them a level of importance they quite frankly don't deserve.

Power can suffer practically anything apart from people's laughter. Do you think idiot hates the media because it takes him seriously? The cretin hates SNL because people laugh at a caricature of him. It undermines his very sense of self as a WEALTHY IMPORTANT PERSON. It kicks his inner child and reminds them that they were once a small screaming human with no control over his bowels. And he's close to the other end of the scale now so that's a serious worry for him. One of the last posts was specifically about prosecuting someone FOR laughing. That alone should give you an understanding of how much power hates HA HA.

The world is very large and complex. I can affect and change a relatively tiny part of it. Even with a couple of lottery wins tomorrow, I would still only be able to change a tiny fraction of it. But yet with modern technology, I can know about vast parts of it. And I'll be FUCKED BLUE if you're telling me not to laugh at it.

Because you've got to laugh at all of it. Dictators with toupees and crazy ideas are fucking hilarious. People acting in vast numbers against their own best interests is downright hysterical. The determination of hordes of idiots wanting to be the boot that stamps on others is a god-damn riot. The only reaction these things deserve is a solid HA HA directly to the face.

So please, take your humourless arse outside and laugh in somethings face. It's liberating, if you have the balls to do so. Or you can sit there and fret about how very serious and sad it all is and try and work out what to do. Here's the thing though, one of us will be having a fucking good time.

Probably me, because I'll be laughing sputum and spittle into your goddamn face. And then I'll laugh at your reaction too for good measure.

Few pages back, so god knows what shit show I'm wandering into (my guess, a big one?), but I really like this. I don't see HA HA as complacency or acceptance. There are and will be many unfunny things happening. But HA HA has gotten me through much more than which politician (or group thereof) is destroying the world . What else are you gonna do? Curl up and cry? I say laugh.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ease a ban on political endorsements by churches and religious groups.The order loosens a provision of the tax code which prohibits religious organisations from directly supporting or opposing political candidates.Mr Trump often complained about the rule as a candidate. Repealing it would require action in Congress.

The next president is going to be sponsored by Scientology. I guarantee it.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ease a ban on political endorsements by churches and religious groups.The order loosens a provision of the tax code which prohibits religious organisations from directly supporting or opposing political candidates.Mr Trump often complained about the rule as a candidate. Repealing it would require action in Congress.

The next president is going to be sponsored by Scientology. I guarantee it.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ease a ban on political endorsements by churches and religious groups.The order loosens a provision of the tax code which prohibits religious organisations from directly supporting or opposing political candidates.Mr Trump often complained about the rule as a candidate. Repealing it would require action in Congress.

The next president is going to be sponsored by Scientology. I guarantee it.

Do you think that would be better or worse than the one we have now?

Ask yourself, how do I feel about the separation of church and state? Because that's what's going away here.

APT28, aka "Fancy Bear", have been identified by two cybersecurity agencies as being behind the hack of the emails of Macron.

Fancy Bear, as you recall, also hacked the DNC and John Podesta's emails. Their timing shows a certain amount of cleverness - French news agencies are banned on reporting in the election in the final 48 hours before a vote, and the emails were leaked just before that deadline. In short, everyone can read the emails, and the Macron campaign cannot respond.

We should of course remember that Trump has endorsed Marine Le Pen. That one of Trump's top advisers was a fundraiser for Le Pen, that they held a strategy meeting in the Trump Towers earlier this year. That the FN in France are heavily backed by Russian banks, and that Marine Le Pen visited Putin a couple of months ago. That Le Pen promises to take France out of both the EU and NATO if she wins.

It's good news, but we still have elections in Germany and the UK to go.

UK will be interesting, as Russia doesn't really have an ally in the UK with any real political influence. The closest would be Corbyn, and while I consider him a little naive on foreign policy issues, I also tend to think he's actually putting out his position in good faith and so would react negatively to Russian aggression abroad and attempts at political manipulation...unlike Le Pen or UKIP. (FWIW, I consider May even more naive than Corbyn on foreign policy, and her position on Russia is even less clear, but the larger Tory Party is generally sceptical of Russian actions)

And in Germany, the AfD needs keeping an eye on. In fact, in Germany, be prepared for more instances of "alleged" Islamic terrorism. We've already seen two attempted false flag terrorist attacks last month, one for profit and one by a right-wing extremist, and both with ties to the military. The German far-right is becoming increasingly volatile and violent, and the armed forces have been allowing Neo-Nazi cells to operate within their branches with relative impunity. Germany could get very messy.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history" - some dead German dude.

Unfortunately, the processes which give rise to fascism are just as prevalent in Germany as elsewhere, and some elements of the German state's legal anti-Nazism, along with Nazism being tied so strongly to German nationalism and history (ie; before Germany was invaded by the Soviets/subjugated by the Americans) give it a perverse appeal - it's countercultural and cool because the state has banned it.

BTW, McMaster, the National Security Advisor who actually knows about national security, is reportedly also on the down and out with the President. Lots of clashing with Trump and with Bannon, the latter twisting the knife as hard as he can in revenge for his dismissal from the NSC. McMasters wants to see an escalation in Afghanistan (where things are actually bad, if you pay attention beyond the MOAB - the Taliban hold about 1/3rd of the country, the government is corrupt, the ANA are useless and the few professional soldiers the Afghans have are being burnt out from having to do everything, and Russia is supporting the Taliban).

I suspect McMaster is also going to get canned in the coming weeks. If he is, then you know something is seriously wrong at the White House.

The other thing to watch in Afghanistan will be how hard the US goes after ISIS in comparison with the Taliban. It's all but taken for granted now that the Taliban are being supported by Russia (don't tell the brave alt-righters that, they will have a meltdown upon hearing Putin supports evil Islamists), which raises the ugly spectre of a proxy war in Afghanistan.

If Russia and the USA do not have aligned foreign policies, that is.

You'll note the meeting at the White House today did not allow the US press to be present. This was by Putin's request. I wonder what Lavrov and Trump discussed...

I know this shit is going to stop being funny at some point. Until then, I am yukking it up as hard as I possibly can.

Maybe I should laugh into some of those aluminized mylar long-term storage bags and put them aside to get me through the tough times ahead.

You're right. At some point, it's going to stop being funny. After that, it's going to be hilarious and we'll all be laughing so hard we won't be able to breathe. Which is probably a good thing because it might buy us a few extra seconds of life, considering the poison gas.

Well, if it helps, most Middle Eastern intelligence agencies are pants on heads retarded. If it doesn't involve funneling arms and cash to terrorist groups, or pulling some guy's fingernails out until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit, they're just not up to par. They have the people, the language skills, the cultural quirks all down...but they either don't have the training, or they have a politicised bureaucracy over them which prevents them from doing good intelligence work.

However, I think it's one of two countries. Both said countries have generally quite good humint in the Middle East, a track record of intelligence-led operations against terrorist groups and a very close working relationship with America in intelligence and military matters. Both have also expressed concern in the recent past that intelligence given to the Donald could end up in Russian hands.

(CNN)Less than a week before US President Donald Trump arrives in Israel, the White House has been forced on to the defensive over reported comments by an American diplomat describing the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City -- one of Judaism's holiest sites -- as being in the West Bank.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office said it was shocked by the comments and said it had asked the United States to explain what was meant by them.

Quote

A White House spokesman later told CNN: "These comments were not authorized by the White House. They do not reflect the US position, and certainly not the President's position."The US embassy in Israel told CNN it had no comment to make.

And, apparently, Comey has begun releasing memos describing every conversation he had with Trump. The first one alleges that Trump directly asked him to end the FBI's investigation of Flynn. The White House denies it all (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/16/trump-james-comey-memo-michael-flynn-fbi-white-house-denial?CMP=twt_gu), of course. More "Fake News!", I suppose. But when that excuse doesn't work, tomorrow Trump will be all over Twitter telling us how he has "absolute right" to do whatever he wants because look at how much red is on that electoral map.

And, apparently, Comey has begun releasing memos describing every conversation he had with Trump. The first one alleges that Trump directly asked him to end the FBI's investigation of Flynn.

Which, anyone who knew anything about Comey could tell you was what he was doing. He's got a reputation at the DoJ for putting everything into memos, probably ones with unusual names or wording so that he can FOIA request them very quickly if need be.

I can't stop laughing at the heaps of potential implications here as they all make idiot look terrible.

If he knew he was being recorded - bad. Did not know he was being recorded? - Bad. Russians able to even take recording equipment into meeting? - Bad.

The further implication that if this conversation was recorded, what else has been? - Bad.

I'm formally taking bets on how long idiot has left in office. When Putin's "defending" you like this you may as well shoot yourself. It's quicker than polonium.

A used heroin needle (with cap!) On him suffering either a real or fake illness before the end of the year that puts his big, fat intel leaking bourgeoisie burger-grinder out of commission. If it's faked by him he's suffering from narcissistic depression as he finally has all the cognitive dissonance come home and realizes that he's not so great. If not... polonium sends the wrong message. He'll probably just have a nice heart-attack or crippling stroke. It might not even be anybody else's fault. He's over 70 with a high BMI and probably blood pressure to match. All he has to do is keep double scooping on ice cream and getting shouting mad. Then it's Pence at the bat... and we're fucked.

Implications still hilarious. The US can't say yes or no without fallout and the question still stands about accuracy and content. Transcripts generally done from recordings too so there's still questions about devices. Unless the line is that one of the diplomats took extensive notes.

It's also amusing to see the Kekites and bots on social media mobilizing to try and counter the Comey memo story. Sadly for them, all they can do is drag up tired old accusations against Hillary ("Seth Rich was murdered for some reason!" and "Emails!" again). I watched a couple of threads trying to make Michelle Obama's school lunch program somehow pertinent to the conversation. But something seems to have cracked yesterday, and despite the obvious attempt to flood the twitterverse with that nonsense, it isn't sticking. I'm not optimistic enough to think that's going to to hold true indefinitely now, but they're having PR issues they haven't had before. The general public sense appears to be that whatever Hillary is or isn't, that's old news and has no real bearing anymore on the discussion.

This is the best example of cognitive disassociation to be seen in our time. "Patriots" slowly realising they voted for a "traitor" So the only monkey option kicks in - Double down. This is just one sacking, it's a total death knell because it just shows how much it will escalate with each coming sacking. Idiot won't be able to control himself for long and I'll bet anything they've got evidence out the arse.

D.C considered a one party consent state, so its possible anyone could have recorded anyone at anytime too. Bet spicer's got some crackers.

Right? Flamboyantly rich, elected on the basis that he represents a change from the old guard of politics, shady dealings accompany his electoral win, and now he's firing people who could potentially hold him accountable. Hmmmm.

The biggest question with Trump is how much of it is corruption and how much is just stupidity. I know a lot of you don't believe he could really be that stupid but personally that's been my impression of him from the beginning.

The biggest question with Trump is how much of it is corruption and how much is just stupidity. I know a lot of you don't believe he could really be that stupid but personally that's been my impression of him from the beginning.

It's difficult to imagine that a president could be as stupid as this man apparently is, but I have to admit my hesitation to believe it is based more on some assumption that you have to be smart to make it that far than on any observable evidence. He does somehow manage to defy the laws of political physics, but that is the result of the artery of hatred he's tapped into more than his own doing. Whether or not he is "stupid" because he is actually too unintelligent to understand things, or because he's never exercised any mental muscle other than "throw money at it until it goes away", I don't know. He obviously lacks even a basic understanding of civics, history, and even economic theory beyond buzzwords, and the result is the same either way.

As for corruption, I don't think Trump sees "corruption" as a thing that even exists. In his mind, if he can make a move and get away with it, it's fair game. He seems to be completely amoral, absolutely untethered to other human beings no matter how close they are. It's very likely deep inside mental illness or sociopathy territory, to a point where he might not be "corrupt", only because he is incapable of conceiving of any such concept. The people around him, however, are obviously corrupt. Whether it is by Russians or just money and power is unclear and really not the question.

Yeah, I see a dumbfuck in a prominent position and it's generally either one of two things - he's either playing the retard in which case he's being dishonest or he really is as dumb as he appears in which case someone smart is totally pulling his strings. I'm not saying Putin cos I honestly have no f'kin idea but if not him them someone like him.

Yeah, I see a dumbfuck in a prominent position and it's generally either one of two things - he's either playing the retard in which case he's being dishonest or he really is as dumb as he appears in which case someone smart is totally pulling his strings. I'm not saying Putin cos I honestly have no f'kin idea but if not him them someone like him.

Could be multiple people pulling the strings. His election was apparently the result of at least two unrelated conspiracies (the Russian email hacks and the Pied Piper conspiracy, though admittedly the later thought they were setting him up to fail. There were also a bunch of news organizations printing biased and outright fake news tp try to sway the electorate in his favor). I think that the best hope at this point is that all the people pulling his strings tangle each other up (or alternately for him to reach the point where he's blowing the job off completely instead of just taking too many golfing vacations; at that critical point there is an abrupt transition from dangerous incompetence to the ideal leader of eastern mysticism that rules well by doing nothing)

President Trump reportedly eschews exercise because he believes it drains the body’s “finite” energy resources, but experts say this argument is flawed because the human body actually becomes stronger with exercise.

I got this one. See, his Chinese comrades probably tried to splain him the concept of Yin, the female principle, which TCM considers finite & non-renewable. That Trump then uniquely informed his understanding with only the concept of Yin should come as no surprise. Trump clearly has negligible Yang.

Someone whose named rhymes with Kared Jushner is being investigated by the FBI for their links to the ever-expanding Russia scandal.

The Special Counsel's team has been looking into the impeachment process "for research purposes".

The Israeli agent who was burned by Trump was not only an asset on ISIS, but also on Hezbollah. Israeli intelligence is beyond outraged at this.

And Russian officials bragged that they could use Michael Flynn to influence Trump.

Also I just saw another one of those "someone close to Comey" things, saying Comey is now convinced Trump was intentionally trying to sway him on the Russia investigation. Maybe a twig, but on the fire it goes.

I was just reading a good article on that: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump

Quote

Comey never told me the details of the dinner meeting; I don’t think I even knew that there had been a meeting over dinner until I learned it from the Times story. But he did tell me in general terms that early on, Trump had “asked for loyalty” and that Comey had promised him only honesty. He also told me that Trump was perceptibly uncomfortable with this answer. And he said that ever since, the President had been trying to be chummy in a fashion that Comey felt was designed to absorb him into Trump’s world—to make him part of the team. Comey was deeply uncomfortable with these episodes. He told me that Trump sometimes talked to him a fashion designed to implicate him in Trump’s way of thinking. While I was not sure quite what this meant, it clearly disquieted Comey. He felt that these conversations were efforts to probe how resistant he would be to becoming a loyalist. In light of the dramatic dinner meeting and the Flynn request, it’s easy to see why they would be upsetting and feel like attempts at pressure.

On March 27, he described one incident in particular that had bothered him. Comey was about to get on a helicopter when his phone rang. It was the White House saying that the President wanted to speak with him. Figuring there must be something urgent going on, he delayed his flight to take the call. To his surprise, the President just wanted to chitchat. He was trying to be social, Comey related; there was no agenda, much less an urgent one. Notably, since the President has claimed that Comey told him in two phone conversations that he was not under investigation, Comey said nothing to me about the subject coming up in this call. Indeed, he regarded the call as weird for how substanceless it was. What bothered Comey was twofold—the fact that the conversation happened at all (why was Trump calling him to exchange pleasantries?) and the fact that there was an undercurrent of Trump’s trying to get him to kiss the ring.

The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia, two people familiar with White House thinking said on Friday.

Trump has said that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead the investigation "hurts our country terribly."

Within hours of Mueller's appointment on Wednesday, the White House began reviewing the Code of Federal Regulations, which restricts newly hired government lawyers from investigating their prior law firm’s clients for one year after their hiring, the sources said.

An executive order signed by Trump in January extended that period to two years.

Mueller's former law firm, WilmerHale, represents Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met with a Russian bank executive in December, and the president's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is a subject of a federal investigation.

Legal experts said the ethics rule can be waived by the Justice Department, which appointed Mueller. He did not represent Kushner or Manafort directly at his former law firm.

If the department did not grant a waiver, Mueller would be barred from investigating Kushner or Manafort, and this could greatly diminish the scope of the probe, experts said.

I was just reading a good article on that: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump

This disturbs me, not just because of the content and character of this kind of inappropriate contact, but because it still technically comes down to how Comey "felt" about it. There may be nothing overtly criminal in it. It's unusual, even inappropriate ethically, but not illegal. And even if it was illegal, there's a whole ocean full of ways for Trump loyalists to call it hearsay and speculation. Hopefully when Comey testifies later this/next month, or at least in private conversations with Mueller's investigation, he can bring something more than "he made me feel dirty". But Comey at least seems to be a person who is smart enough not to get himself into the situation he's in now with nothing to back himself up.

The fact that this is already public knowledge is great, but I hope Rosenstein can come through on this waiver. Given Mueller's own history in the DOJ/FBI, I don't doubt his personal honesty or thoroughness just because he worked for a firm that represented Trump (unlike Lieberman who owns a firm that represents Trump and is apparently about to be nominated for the FBI directorship). But my paranoid half worries he was the one appointed as Special Counsel precisely because of this rule, in order to insulate Trump and his closest circle from the investigation.

I liked the look on Netanyahu's face during their little press statement. He had the same exasperated look that a kindergarten teacher has when she's trying to corral a particularly dense kid back into the lunch line.

President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.

I don't know...I'm at least 90% sure Kushner did something illegal. He's a spoiled little rich boy who's never been told no and made his entire career on the back of his father's fortune. I know the type. He's done something, and Bannon hates his guts. Bannon will squeal to the FBI, and the FBI will nail his balls to a wall the first chance they get.

I suspect the only reason something hasn't already happened is the suspicion that Kushner was the middle-man for Trump. It makes sense. I've heard from connected reporters rumours a while back that Flynn was acting as the middle man for someone higher up in the Trump admin. Obviously, we now know that's Kushner. That's why the FBI didn't give Flynn immunity - they already knew what they needed, and had their eyes on a bigger prize.

I don't know...I'm at least 90% sure Kushner did something illegal. He's a spoiled little rich boy who's never been told no and made his entire career on the back of his father's fortune. I know the type. He's done something, and Bannon hates his guts. Bannon will squeal to the FBI, and the FBI will nail his balls to a wall the first chance they get.

I suspect the only reason something hasn't already happened is the suspicion that Kushner was the middle-man for Trump. It makes sense. I've heard from connected reporters rumours a while back that Flynn was acting as the middle man for someone higher up in the Trump admin. Obviously, we now know that's Kushner. That's why the FBI didn't give Flynn immunity - they already knew what they needed, and had their eyes on a bigger prize.

My real fear here is that the FBI will nail Flynn, Kushner, and maybe a few other middle men, and somehow Trump will come out smelling like roses.

I don't know...I'm at least 90% sure Kushner did something illegal. He's a spoiled little rich boy who's never been told no and made his entire career on the back of his father's fortune. I know the type. He's done something, and Bannon hates his guts. Bannon will squeal to the FBI, and the FBI will nail his balls to a wall the first chance they get.

I suspect the only reason something hasn't already happened is the suspicion that Kushner was the middle-man for Trump. It makes sense. I've heard from connected reporters rumours a while back that Flynn was acting as the middle man for someone higher up in the Trump admin. Obviously, we now know that's Kushner. That's why the FBI didn't give Flynn immunity - they already knew what they needed, and had their eyes on a bigger prize.

My real fear here is that the FBI will nail Flynn, Kushner, and maybe a few other middle men, and somehow Trump will come out smelling like roses.

The worst case scenario is one where Trump gets impeached without first impeaching and replacing Pence.

Even then, whomever the house appointed to replace Pence would be their creature.

Trump is an assclown, but he doesn't take directions well. Pence will do precisely what he's told, if he can have his dominionist agenda advanced in exchange.

I don't know...I'm at least 90% sure Kushner did something illegal. He's a spoiled little rich boy who's never been told no and made his entire career on the back of his father's fortune. I know the type. He's done something, and Bannon hates his guts. Bannon will squeal to the FBI, and the FBI will nail his balls to a wall the first chance they get.

I suspect the only reason something hasn't already happened is the suspicion that Kushner was the middle-man for Trump. It makes sense. I've heard from connected reporters rumours a while back that Flynn was acting as the middle man for someone higher up in the Trump admin. Obviously, we now know that's Kushner. That's why the FBI didn't give Flynn immunity - they already knew what they needed, and had their eyes on a bigger prize.

My real fear here is that the FBI will nail Flynn, Kushner, and maybe a few other middle men, and somehow Trump will come out smelling like roses.

The worst case scenario is one where Trump gets impeached without first impeaching and replacing Pence.

Even then, whomever the house appointed to replace Pence would be their creature.

Trump is an assclown, but he doesn't take directions well. Pence will do precisely what he's told, if he can have his dominionist agenda advanced in exchange.

Knowing Americans, this is exactly what will happen. Somehow we'll nap Trump and kick him out, and then everyone will sit back and congratulate themselves on doing such a bang-up job of saving the republic and such, and let Pence and his gang of Objectivist Dominionists completely ruin everything.

I don't know...I'm at least 90% sure Kushner did something illegal. He's a spoiled little rich boy who's never been told no and made his entire career on the back of his father's fortune. I know the type. He's done something, and Bannon hates his guts. Bannon will squeal to the FBI, and the FBI will nail his balls to a wall the first chance they get.

I suspect the only reason something hasn't already happened is the suspicion that Kushner was the middle-man for Trump. It makes sense. I've heard from connected reporters rumours a while back that Flynn was acting as the middle man for someone higher up in the Trump admin. Obviously, we now know that's Kushner. That's why the FBI didn't give Flynn immunity - they already knew what they needed, and had their eyes on a bigger prize.

My real fear here is that the FBI will nail Flynn, Kushner, and maybe a few other middle men, and somehow Trump will come out smelling like roses.

The worst case scenario is one where Trump gets impeached without first impeaching and replacing Pence.

Even then, whomever the house appointed to replace Pence would be their creature.

Trump is an assclown, but he doesn't take directions well. Pence will do precisely what he's told, if he can have his dominionist agenda advanced in exchange.

Knowing Americans, this is exactly what will happen. Somehow we'll nap Trump and kick him out, and then everyone will sit back and congratulate themselves on doing such a bang-up job of saving the republic and such, and let Pence and his gang of Objectivist Dominionists completely ruin everything.

I'm not convinced Pence isn't involved. He's been better at hiding it, but Pence is either part of it, or he's so completely oblivious to what is happening that he should be impeached on those grounds anyway.

Pence headed up the transition team. Flynn informed the transition team he was under Federal investigation for working as a lobbyist for Turkey at that time, by his own admission. Rep Elijah Cummings also sent a letter to Pence warning him about Flynn's work for Turkey. Pence had no problem booting out Cristie and his supporters, but left Flynn in place.

Pence also gave cover to the lie that Comey was fired on the advice of the Deputy Attorney General, despite knowing that Trump had determined Comey would be sacked before asking Rosenstein for the legal reasoning to justify it.

Pence was picked by Manafort for the VP slot. We all know about Manafort and Ukraine/Russia. What isn't widely reported is that Russia has significant sway in the evangelical community in recent years. The Russian government is aggressively promoting Orthodox Christianity, and aggressively expanding its contacts with American evangelicals as "brothers in arms" against both Islam and secular liberalism. Sounds like the kind of thing Pence might be in to.

Pence is cleverer than Trump. But he's involved. And he's not cleverer than the world's best funded intelligence agencies.

Of course. That was the Stormfront playbook all along: "support Trump as a wedge to gain greater support for white supremacy, when everything goes wrong, blame it on Trump's poor morals, New York and Jared Kushner the Jew".

I suspect that even if Trump is impeached, even if he got into srs trouble, he's done immeasurable damage in that he's emboldened every white supremacist piece of shit in America and convinced each that they are a king.

I think if Trump was impeached, you'd have significant civil unrest. Nearly 40% of the country (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/) still approves of him despite everything he's done to date.

How many people will immediately consider his ouster a (((globalist))) liberal conspiracy? How many of those people have positions in state governments, the national guard, the police force, or live in big compounds in the woods?

Eventually America is going to have to lance that boil. When that day comes, it won't be pretty.

Oh I don't doubt Pence is involved up to his eyeballs. But I'm not as sure about political will. If we nail Trump, the GOP will almost certainly do everything it can to limit the damage, including protecting Pence if at all possible. And I don't have much faith in Democrats to pursue such loose ends, they seem more likely to quit while they're ahead. The masses will be on edge in case of impeachment, with the Left mostly celebrating as if all their problems have been fixed and the Right probably on the verge of armed insurrection. I know the FBI will likely follow the trail to every provable conclusion, but will that be enough?

Oh I don't doubt Pence is involved up to his eyeballs. But I'm not as sure about political will. If we nail Trump, the GOP will almost certainly do everything it can to limit the damage, including protecting Pence if at all possible. And I don't have much faith in Democrats to pursue such loose ends, they seem more likely to quit while they're ahead. The masses will be on edge in case of impeachment, with the Left mostly celebrating as if all their problems have been fixed and the Right probably on the verge of armed insurrection. I know the FBI will likely follow the trail to every provable conclusion, but will that be enough?

If they nail Pence first, they can appoint their own guy, then get Trump. The faithful will fall in line.

They'll get their guy no matter how it goes. If anyone is impeached, they'll be sure to paint themselves as heroes and get so much political capital they could repeal the entire Constitution without much of a hiccup.

They'll get their guy no matter how it goes. If anyone is impeached, they'll be sure to paint themselves as heroes and get so much political capital they could repeal the entire Constitution without much of a hiccup.

I know this is literally all anyone is talking about, but(http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170531090728-trump-tweets-covfeve-exlarge-169.jpg)also, on topic, I agree that the emboldening of jackasses is going to be a pretty big issue even once things get patched up on the political scale. The wonderful thing about the government is that it can't control the social climate (though it can try). This also means that the assholes are going to remain emboldened for some time.

"One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved," the Guardian quoted one source as saying. "If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage."

"He's right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There's a lot of attention being paid to him."

"One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved," the Guardian quoted one source as saying. "If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage."

"He's right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There's a lot of attention being paid to him."

:lulz:

Farage being extradited and rotting in a US jail would be beautiful. No end of Russian links when you look at that prick

"One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved," the Guardian quoted one source as saying. "If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage."

"He's right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There's a lot of attention being paid to him."

Damn, it'd be hilarious if this investigation opened up a whole rat's nest. :lulz:(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Ratking.jpg)

....and idiot repudiates the Paris accord on climate change because coal. Elon musk resigned advisory role in protest, which I suspect was always coming over something. Not a huge fan of musk but he is actually smart in some areas. And unlike idiot, actually wealthy. Which will probably dint idiots ego having him quit so expect a borderline libelous statement shortly. Musk is also one of the few people who could also have a proper pop at him legally as a private citizen. Which could end in all kinds of funny.

The thought occurs that we're really not that far removed from the economies of the 1800-1900 in actual function, just the potential stakes have risen.

When Cain said idiot was dead meat walking, I never guessed there would be quite as many angles for him to get fucked by. Ill health, bad company, bad choices, bad timing, the list is endless.

Isn't the also the guy that said "Brexit will bring prosperity" or some shit?

Yes, along with the 350 million extra every minute for the nhs. Which is one of the reasons it's funny when everyone accuses everyone else of having magic money trees.

Government plan here at the moment seems to be:1-have election, someone wins and a form of brexit occurs2-roll around in shit for 2 years over a deal that can only end badly.3-????4-profit, apparently.

The trumpers have now convinced themselves that Trump MEANT to type "covfefe", and that it an Arabic word meaning either "I will stand up" or “In the end we win.”.

:kingmeh:

Thanks. You made me look up the background to this, and it's probably one of the most terrifyingly stupid things I have seen take root in Kek land. Jesus absolute Christ, the stupidity and self-delusion are so much. Problematically, it doesn't matter. True or not, insane or not, it doesn't matter. So many people are in on this awful joke (this MAGA shit in general) that they may very well carry the rest of us with them regardless of how absolutely bonkers it is.

I actually read both the Infowars article on Reality Winner and Mensch's feed.

Mensch is by far the more unhinged one. And yes. In addition to all of Mensch's critics being in the pay of Russia. All of them.

I sometimes entertain the theory that she's been fed a line of bullshit by an actual Russian spook to make the Russia inquiry look as unhinged as her...but then I remember she was always an intellectual and political lightweight. I remember her pathetic attempts at sparring with Ian Hislop...it was actually painful to watch. Almost as painful as her feed is now.

In a statement Tuesday, Pyongyang said Washington's move represented "the height of egoism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being, even at the cost of the entire planet.""The selfish act of the US does not only have grave consequences for the international efforts to protect the environment, but poses great danger to other areas as well," a spokesman for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to state news agency KCNA.KCNA regularly issues caustic missives on all aspects of US policy. In Tuesday's statement, Pyongyang also linked Washington's climate policy to its "unreasonable and reckless" actions against North Korea's nuclear program.

Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to say whether Trump has confidence in Sessions."I have not had a discussion with him about that," Spicer said.As of 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, the White House still was unable to say whether or not the President backs his attorney general, a White House official said. The official said they wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened when Kellyanne Conway said Trump had confidence in Flynn only to find out hours later that the national security adviser had been pushed out.Sessions remains at the Justice Department, where a spokeswoman told CNN that he is not stepping down.ABC News first reported Tuesday that Sessions offered to resign.

You just know your country is a fucking joke when North Korea can legitimately claim moral high ground. My heart does go out to you guys who have to live across there but I'll be fucked if I can stop laughing at this point. Doubly so since the UK's biggest import is american-brand retardedness. I believe we're already in the process of introducing death camps for people who install solar panels on their roofs :lulz:

So, I'm working tonight but I'm making a special effort to get up tomorrow in time for the testimony. I have popcorn ready to go in the microwave, a red bull bull in the fridge to wake me up, and beer for when we get to the good stuff.

You just know your country is a fucking joke when North Korea can legitimately claim moral high ground. My heart does go out to you guys who have to live across there but I'll be fucked if I can stop laughing at this point. Doubly so since the UK's biggest import is american-brand retardedness. I believe we're already in the process of introducing death camps for people who install solar panels on their roofs :lulz:

"The reason this is such a big deal — we have this big, messy, wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time, but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for, except other Americans, and that’s wonderful and often painful.

But we’re talking about a foreign government that, using technical intrusion, lots of other methods, tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. That is a big deal. And people need to recognize it.

It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. They’re coming after America, which I hope we all love equally. They want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them, and so they’re going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible."

US President Donald Trump says he is "100%" willing to speak under oath about his conversations with ex-FBI chief James Comey.

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When asked about whether he had recordings of his conversations with Mr Comey, which he has previously hinted, the president said he would address it at a later date."I'll tell you something about that maybe sometime in the very near future," he said on Friday. "I'll tell you about it over a short period of time. I'm not hinting at anything."

:lulz:

"I'm letting my lawyer listen to them over the weekend before I confirm or deny the existence of them."

McCain's either drunk, high, suffering from the early symptoms of dementia or being intentionally stupid.

Finished watching the full thing, I'd say McCain's probably a combination of all of the above.

Also easy to see which members are still on the idiot train despite how proceedings opened. Also easy to see which ones are taking it seriously, all the good questions were saved for the closed hearing which must have been hilarious.

Trumpeteers will believe this as gospel truth. I suspect that the True Trump Believers will be dangerous if he does get impeached.

Speaking of which, I've been keeping an eye on Scott Adams. Wanna see something funny?http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161585486426/the-comey-fog

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There are several related stories swirling around the news that involve Russia, Trump Idiot, Trump’s Idiot's campaign staff, and Comey. All together, the stories are beyond the capacity of the human brain to hold the details and keep them from automatically conflating in our minds and becoming more soup than individual ingredients. When you have this level of complexity, humans reflexively default to using bias over reason. Our capacity for reason isn’t up to the job in this case because all the Russia-Comey-TrumpIdiot stuff has started to run together in our minds. We would happily use our limited powers of reason in this situation if we could, but the complexity of it all makes that a dream beyond our grasp.

Could a trained lawyer sort out this complexity and at least tell you whether or not a law has been broken? Apparently not. Otherwise the lawyers on both sides would agree. They don’t.

My emphasis on the last part. It's amazing, it's almost like lawyers are paid to support different sides! Was he actually expecting a statement from Idiot's lawyer saying "My guy is so fucking guilty, I'm walking away. Seriously guys, super guilty. This is part of a life change as I've now decided I hate money."

The rest of it reads like he just didn't see the opening 15 or so minutes where the chairman and deputy gave a narrative of the known facts to date which included reams of "Russia is fucking with us, and we ALL agree on that and so do you."

But hey, 'This is all beyond what any puny mind can grasp anyway, right?

There's an interesting phenomenon with cults; typically with most cults, there is a moment of truth when the cult predictions don't come true, or the cult leader is exposed as a fraud. At that time, a large proportion of the cult's followers become disillusioned, and leave the cult, often forming deep hostility and resentment toward the cult that wasted their time/money and/or caused them to engage in behavior they believe they would not normally have done. The remaining proportion, however, develop an even deeper faith, and an unshakeable resolve to support and believe in the cult no matter what evidence indicates it is an unwise choice, or that they are being misled and even defrauded.

Scott Adams is probably going to be the latter, and it will be an interesting thing to watch unfold as his attempts to rationalize become increasingly shrill and disjointed.

He's only doing so in order to avoid a public testimony in front of another committee (https://thinkprogress.org/sessions-cancels-testimony-f8874373e4f).

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Instead of testifying publicly before the appropriations committees, where these matters could be discussed in the light of day, Sessions will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Washington Post and USA Today report that Sessions’ appearance is expected to be closed.

The thing is, Congress can simply reinstate Mueller, which the Democrats have made clear they will do if he is fired. But it's not so clear what the Republicans will do. Hence the ratfucking, the media campaign to sway them via swaying the public. We're already seeing the lower tier alt-lite outlets going with Mueller being in the pay of the Clintons etc. Soon the larger rightwing media campaign will follow. Get the mob fired up and you can do anything.

Color me unsurprised. Weren't we saying this all along? http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/06/new_research_on_role_of_sexism_in_2016_election.html

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Maxwell’s gender-based analysis of the Blair Center Poll’s results for this year has just been released, and it shows that sexism absolutely did matter. Trump’s voters were more sexist than Clinton’s (and Ted Cruz voters were even more sexist than Trump voters). Republicans were far more sexist than Democrats. White respondents were more sexist than black Americans and Latinos. Female respondents, not to be outdone, were also quite sexist! And Bernie primary voters who didn’t vote for Clinton in the general were more sexist than those who did.

Color me unsurprised. Weren't we saying this all along? http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/06/new_research_on_role_of_sexism_in_2016_election.html

Quote

Maxwell’s gender-based analysis of the Blair Center Poll’s results for this year has just been released, and it shows that sexism absolutely did matter. Trump’s voters were more sexist than Clinton’s (and Ted Cruz voters were even more sexist than Trump voters). Republicans were far more sexist than Democrats. White respondents were more sexist than black Americans and Latinos. Female respondents, not to be outdone, were also quite sexist! And Bernie primary voters who didn’t vote for Clinton in the general were more sexist than those who did.

Color me unsurprised. Weren't we saying this all along? http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2017/06/new_research_on_role_of_sexism_in_2016_election.html

Quote

Maxwell’s gender-based analysis of the Blair Center Poll’s results for this year has just been released, and it shows that sexism absolutely did matter. Trump’s voters were more sexist than Clinton’s (and Ted Cruz voters were even more sexist than Trump voters). Republicans were far more sexist than Democrats. White respondents were more sexist than black Americans and Latinos. Female respondents, not to be outdone, were also quite sexist! And Bernie primary voters who didn’t vote for Clinton in the general were more sexist than those who did.

I'm noticing a lot more overt sexism lately... like racism I think it feels safe for these assholes to start talking openly about how they always felt.

The bright side is these recent movies featuring central female characters must be inducing a fair amount of stress-induced coronaries.

Yeah, I feel like there's a distinct "culture wars" vibe around feminism right now. A lot of people on the left have yelled and hooted about how it's not necessary anymore for a long time, but as overt sexism and misogyny becomes more visible and impossible to ignore, I think that position is getting harder and harder to maintain. At the same time, aggressive gendered marketing toward men is ramping up notably, as well as social messaging about masculinity and manliness.

It's extremely noticeable online, Gamergate helped bring it to the fore of social media and online culture, via /PUATheRedPill/ReturnOfTheKings/rape is awesome crowd and its since developed into an entire online media industry of its own.

Seen snippets of sessions testimony, it's practically the opposite of Comey. Presents very badly, screams dishonesty and is clearly trying to curry favour with idiot rather than actually help explain anything.

I mean, I expected as much, I just thought the prick would be a little slicker about it than this. Will go through the full thing because I'm sure there's basis for criminal charges given how long it's gone on. I assume sessions knows this as well and is expecting idiot to save him from any fallout.

The whole thing boils down to this: "I can't answer that because it's between me and the president." "Are you invoking executive privilege?" (i.e., are you an idiot) "No, you and I both know I can't do that. I'm giving the president the option to invoke executive privilege later on." "Will you answer these in closed session?" "Maybe."

And -- most important, I must stress. "Have you met with the Russians to overthrow the rightful rule of law in the United States?" "I don't remember doing that but if I did it was very proper and nothing improper happened at all."

Oh, and poor Sen. Harris getting talked over by 5 different fucking people with a look of long-suffering patience on her face.

I sadly couldn't watch due to being at work. From what I understand, Senator Harris was herself a former prosecutor, and Sessions was noticeably nervous at being questioned by her. Were the interrupting parties Republican?

You know that's a silly question, right? I believe it was McCain, I was watching a version that kept cameras on sessions face.

Overall, it was a piss poor performance from him. Telegraphing to idiot where he should claim executive privilege was quite obvious. His non answers to Harris and clear attempts to just run the clock out should have made him embarrassed but this is sessions.

A reliance on "policy" where you can't produce the policy is a bit of a no-no. No questions on any other diplomats met from other nations so little way to gauge if he met more or less than is usual with kislayak. Reluctant to commit to future appearances. Cotton practically sucked him off for his segment. Piss poor memory throughout. In general the opposite of comeys testimony. Evasive answers, little info, quick to recall a conversation with kislayak from the start of the Crimea debacle, couldn't remember standing 2 meters away in a group photo at a speech at the start of the year.

His "I get nervous" to Harris is telling. I'd be nervous too if I was trying my best to avoid criminal charges under oath.

Anecdotal, but when I've had to testify under oath I was in a similar situation to comey (stacks of contemporary notes, email chains, detailed timeline of actions taken, wronged party) and the other side was similar to sessions with a "we thought we could, so we did." It didn't end well for them and I predict the same for sessions, eventually.

So, bets on when idiot decides to hang himself under oath? Tuppence on week after next and never.

That explains Mccains section this time and last week then. Also adds an interesting factor if idiot testifies as he's now got "that thing" with Mccain, and I would assume others?

What's in it for Cotton? Just butthurt over comey or other incentives possibly at play?

Other things - sessions repeatedly reffering to the panel as "colleagues" in a "I'm one of you" way was a little off. Body language noticable shifted depending on questioners and the quality of the questions went with that.

Passing implications that methods of communication between parties were dead drops and such, not open meetings. If there's more on that or any substance to it everyone involved is screwed to beyond hope. That probably qualifies as straight up treason.

Tom Cotton is Trump's life coach for the White House. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/politics/senator-tom-cotton-trump-coach-providing-policy-rhetoric.html?_r=0)

Holy shit :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

Quote

“What you see is what you get with the president Idiot,” Mr. Cotton said. “I think that’s a good measure of a man. Not just someone in politics. You don’t get much different in private than in you do public.”

The natural implication here is he's just as stupid and incompetent in private as he presents himself in public.

I'd be surprised. Shooter is described as white, mid 40s, no doubt lurid description of his mental state will be forthcoming. He doesn't fit an outsider-existential threat-thingly veiled racism-potential conspiracy candidate.

For other examples, see the Neo-Nazi in Florida last week who was let out on bail despite stockpiling ammo, explosives and having material related to McVeigh in his flat.

Also, the threat is over. Martial law can't be used to justify intervention in a case where the police response clearly overwhelmed the attacker, or else every school and workplace shooting would equally be grounds for martial law.

I didn't see who spoke up over Harris, but I know that there was more than one. There was also an audible "doesn't seem like it" (sounded like Cornyn's voice) when the Chairman stated that the focus was the Russia situation, so there's a /concerted/ effort to derail and bury this.

There was a very obvious show Sessions was putting on. When the Chairman (who had the face of a cannibal the entire time, it was amazing) questioned him he played this senile old man routine and hunched in his chair. When Cotton was talking, he was /noticeably/ relaxed and friendly, leaned back, got to acting very at ease. Cornyn had him only slightly more on edge. McCain was actually asking okay questions and Sessions acted very threatened by him, surprisingly. Sessions tried some bullshit with the Vice Chairman early on but he managed to keep the focus on. Reed, Harris, Wyden and someone else I didnt catch the name of all were putting the screws to him for the stupidity of the whole "executive privilege" thing, and he got visibly enraged with Wyden and the guy-I-can't-remember.

James T Hodgkinson is a 66-year-old man from Belleville, Illinois, a small city just across the Mississippi River from the city of St Louis, Missouri Mr Hodgkinson's wife told ABC News he moved to Virginia two months ago His Facebook account shows anti-Republican and anti-Trump rhetoric He was a volunteer on the campaign of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders

I didn't see who spoke up over Harris, but I know that there was more than one. There was also an audible "doesn't seem like it" (sounded like Cornyn's voice) when the Chairman stated that the focus was the Russia situation, so there's a /concerted/ effort to derail and bury this.

There was a very obvious show Sessions was putting on. When the Chairman (who had the face of a cannibal the entire time, it was amazing) questioned him he played this senile old man routine and hunched in his chair. When Cotton was talking, he was /noticeably/ relaxed and friendly, leaned back, got to acting very at ease. Cornyn had him only slightly more on edge. McCain was actually asking okay questions and Sessions acted very threatened by him, surprisingly. Sessions tried some bullshit with the Vice Chairman early on but he managed to keep the focus on. Reed, Harris, Wyden and someone else I didnt catch the name of all were putting the screws to him for the stupidity of the whole "executive privilege" thing, and he got visibly enraged with Wyden and the guy-I-can't-remember.

America hired a billionaire to protect them from billionaires. We hire cops to investigate fellow cops. Obviously, we're going to have congress investigate members and former members of congress.

I recall reading somewhere that he asked a passerby in the parking lot prior to the shooting if it was Republicans or Democrats practicing.

It may just be that none of those hit were intended because of their person, just their party. The good news, for them, is that he wasn't a great shot.

... that's just about the only good news. I do find it fucked that when Gifford and company were gunned down they didn't stop the wheels of government for a whole day as happened today. Not much else to say.

Deputy AG Rosenstein may also have to recuse himself from the investigation. As the special counsel is now investigating the potential obstruction of justice in addition to the Russia allegations, and Rosenstein may be called upon as a witness to the former, he cannot continue to preside over a case he is involved with.

Deputy AG Rosenstein may also have to recuse himself from the investigation. As the special counsel is now investigating the potential obstruction of justice in addition to the Russia allegations, and Rosenstein may be called upon as a witness to the former, he cannot continue to preside over a case he is involved with.

If that occurs, what does that mean WRT Trump potentially trying to bury Mueller?

One of the few avenues I see talked about involves him going to Rosenstein. If Rosenstein recuses himself /after/ appointing the counsel, does the counsel have any Justice Dept official with the authority to shitcan him? Does /anyone/ have the authority to can him without doing particularly weird and potentially illegal things in that situation?

I kind of like the idea of a judicial secret police aimed at keeping the top leadership honest.

One of the few avenues I see talked about involves him going to Rosenstein. If Rosenstein recuses himself /after/ appointing the counsel, does the counsel have any Justice Dept official with the authority to shitcan him? Does /anyone/ have the authority to can him without doing particularly weird and potentially illegal things in that situation?

I doubt this is now possible without a mini-constitutional crisis. Whoever is directly under Rosenstein would have to start it or potentially risk charges themselves for failure to do so when their underling does.

I'd say there's big hints about how this is expected to go with everyone grabbing lawyers and hearings on the matters are scheduled in a variety of ways from now till god knows when. It'll reach a point where idiot is just "that guy who is squatting in the white house" and he'll be treated as an irrelevance. Anything he does probably only adds to the case(s) against him at this point.

One of the few avenues I see talked about involves him going to Rosenstein. If Rosenstein recuses himself /after/ appointing the counsel, does the counsel have any Justice Dept official with the authority to shitcan him? Does /anyone/ have the authority to can him without doing particularly weird and potentially illegal things in that situation?

I doubt this is now possible without a mini-constitutional crisis. Whoever is directly under Rosenstein would have to start it or potentially risk charges themselves for failure to do so when their underling does.

I'd say there's big hints about how this is expected to go with everyone grabbing lawyers and hearings on the matters are scheduled in a variety of ways from now till god knows when. It'll reach a point where idiot is just "that guy who is squatting in the white house" and he'll be treated as an irrelevance. Anything he does probably only adds to the case(s) against him at this point.

Trump is already an irrelevance. The past two days or so, news about him is his impotent twitter-flailing or side-mentions in articles about everyone else lawyering up -- and Mueller gearing up to stick his dick in Trump's bank account.

Two full days.

He barely exists at this point, everything going on is so much bigger than the Bad Hair.

Deputy AG Rosenstein may also have to recuse himself from the investigation. As the special counsel is now investigating the potential obstruction of justice in addition to the Russia allegations, and Rosenstein may be called upon as a witness to the former, he cannot continue to preside over a case he is involved with.

If that occurs, what does that mean WRT Trump potentially trying to bury Mueller?

One of the few avenues I see talked about involves him going to Rosenstein. If Rosenstein recuses himself /after/ appointing the counsel, does the counsel have any Justice Dept official with the authority to shitcan him? Does /anyone/ have the authority to can him without doing particularly weird and potentially illegal things in that situation?

I kind of like the idea of a judicial secret police aimed at keeping the top leadership honest.

I believe it goes to the next person down the chain from Deputy AG Rosenstein, whoever that is. I think that would be the Associate Attorney General, Rachel Brand.

As for firing, the President can himself fire the Special Counsel at any time, or order the Attorney General to do so. Trump has been considering doing so. However, Congress can pass a motion to reinstate a special counsel, if they so choose. It also makes the President look guilty as fuck, which may be the only factor which has prevented him from doing it so far.

Ken Starr has popped up in the odd interview. Interesting talking head as once did a similar process that led to Bill Clinton's woes. That investigation started about property and ended with Monica Lewinsky. So it gives an idea about where this whole thing with Mueller can potentially go, which is practically fucking anywhere.

Quote

It also makes the President look guilty as fuck, which may be the only factor which has prevented him from doing it so far.

I'll have a fiver on it happening though. Sooner or later idiot will lose any self control he has on the issue and do it anyway. Probably around the time that lying MSM starts declaring him "obviously guilty of REDACTED".

I fully expect him to stir up as much shit as he possibly can on his way out, and after -- way after, even. It will be an integral part of his brand. He'll play that tune till the day he dies, and leave it for his children to inherit for their personal and political gain.

And then there's all the classified info he has access to. Who know what he's learned, and how he'll use it to his advantage after he's out.

Here's the thing... once idiot is out, whether it is in a standard manner or impeachment, we are NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END of how unfair it all was, and how no president in history had it as hard as him. For as long as he lives. Just non fucking stop.

God. Daamn. It seems like time to place bets on /something/ but /what/? I have no clue.

Well there's a few things. The first one is "which idiot ally with knowledge will choose to cooperate for immunity first". My money's on Flynn for that one.

The second is when will the lawyers lawyer get his own lawyer? I reckon start of August for that, quietly. If I remember correctly, lawyer/client privilege covers a lot but serious shit like treason is exempt and a duty to report kicks in. Not a lawyer etc. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from them in the future.

God. Daamn. It seems like time to place bets on /something/ but /what/? I have no clue.

Well there's a few things. The first one is "which idiot ally with knowledge will choose to cooperate for immunity first". My money's on Flynn for that one.

The second is when will the lawyers lawyer get his own lawyer? I reckon start of August for that, quietly. If I remember correctly, lawyer/client privilege covers a lot but serious shit like treason is exempt and a duty to report kicks in. Not a lawyer etc. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from them in the future.

Based on my extensive knowledge of the legal system, which I earned by watching The People's Court as a kid and also hearing legal-sounding jargon on random episodes of three different Law & Order series, I think lawyers will start resigning their posts if it ever looks like the T word starts being bandied about by serious people.

That said, I would be legitimately shocked if it ever gets even half that far. Impeachment (even without conviction in the Senate) is still a long ways off ,politically, and impeachment isn't a criminal justice thing. And if it ever gets that far, there's no reason to think they'll pursue criminal charges of any kind afterward, let alone Treason.

Here's the thing... once idiot is out, whether it is in a standard manner or impeachment, we are NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END of how unfair it all was, and how no president in history had it as hard as him. For as long as he lives. Just non fucking stop.

Even if he goes to prison, he'll probably write a book called something like "FRAMED: The Most Persecuted Man in America Speaks".

God. Daamn. It seems like time to place bets on /something/ but /what/? I have no clue.

Well there's a few things. The first one is "which idiot ally with knowledge will choose to cooperate for immunity first". My money's on Flynn for that one.

The second is when will the lawyers lawyer get his own lawyer? I reckon start of August for that, quietly. If I remember correctly, lawyer/client privilege covers a lot but serious shit like treason is exempt and a duty to report kicks in. Not a lawyer etc. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from them in the future.

Here's the thing... once idiot is out, whether it is in a standard manner or impeachment, we are NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END of how unfair it all was, and how no president in history had it as hard as him. For as long as he lives. Just non fucking stop.

Even if he goes to prison, he'll probably write a book called something like "FRAMED: The Most Persecuted Man in America Speaks".

"If I Did It I Would Have Sold America Out Bigly: Confessions of the largest handed President."

Here's the thing... once idiot is out, whether it is in a standard manner or impeachment, we are NEVER GOING TO HEAR THE END of how unfair it all was, and how no president in history had it as hard as him. For as long as he lives. Just non fucking stop.

Even if he goes to prison, he'll probably write a book called something like "FRAMED: The Most Persecuted Man in America Speaks".

"If I Did It I Would Have Sold America Out Bigly: Confessions of the largest handed President."

Nah. He's used fake tapes as a bluff before with reporters when he was just an asshole real estate con artist. It's more believable he'd go with an old trope as opposed to concocting a real surveillance system.

Plus, with the amount of leaks so far, the absence of leaks about this points to truth.

We will see, I am kind of expecting shit like that to be used in evidence against him, along with plenty of other crap he's said publically.

On another note:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-donald-trump-vladimir-putin.html?mc=adintl&mcid=keywee&mccr=intdesk&ad-keywords=IntlAudDev&kwp_0=432214&kwp_4=1589511&kwp_1=687290

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The trouble began in June, with a meeting of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.

It was then, according to The Post, that Mr. McCarthy delivered his assessment, playful or otherwise: “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” Mr. McCarthy said. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, is known as Mr. Putin’s most vigorous defender in Congress.

Mr. McCarthy’s comments drew some laughter, according to The Post, prompting him to add, “Swear to God.”

Mr. Ryan then instructed other attendees not to share the conversation. “No leaks,” he said, according to The Post. “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

The paper reported that spokesmen for Mr. Ryan and Mr. McCarthy at first denied the exchange had taken place until being told that The Post would cite a recording.

Also, for posterity:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

Quote

JAN. 21 “I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)JAN. 21 “A reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Idiot was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.)JAN. 23 “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There's no evidence of illegal voting.)JAN. 25 “Now, the audience was the biggest ever. But this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive.” (Official aerial photos show Obama's 2009 inauguration was much more heavily attended.)JAN. 25 “Take a look at the Pew reports (which show voter fraud.)” (The report never mentioned voter fraud.)JAN. 25 “You had millions of people that now aren't insured anymore.” (The real number is less than 1 million, according to the Urban Institute.)JAN. 25 “So, look, when President Obama was there two weeks ago making a speech, very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech. You can't have that.” (There were no gun homicide victims in Chicago that day.)JAN. 26 “We've taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them. They can say they vet them. They didn't vet them. They have no papers. How can you vet somebody when you don't know anything about them and you have no papers? How do you vet them? You can't.” (Vetting lasts up to two years.)JAN. 26 “I cut off hundreds of millions of dollars off one particular plane, hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period of time. It wasn't like I spent, like, weeks, hours, less than hours, and many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. And the plane's going to be better.” (Most of the cuts were already planned.)JAN. 28 “The coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost has been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its dwindling subscribers and readers.” (It never apologized.)JAN. 29 “The Cuban-Americans, I got 84 percent of that vote.” (There is no support for this.)JAN. 30 “Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage.” (At least 746 people were detained and processed, and the Delta outage happened two days later.)FEB. 3 “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (There is no evidence of paid protesters.)FEB. 4 “After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!” (It never apologized.)FEB. 5 “We had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.” (About 60,000 people were affected.)FEB. 6 “I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35.” (Much of the price drop was projected before Idiot took office.)FEB. 6 “It's gotten to a point where it is not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it.” (Terrorism has been reported on, often in detail.)FEB. 6 “The failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!” (It didn't apologize.)FEB. 6 “And the previous administration allowed it to happen because we shouldn't have been in Iraq, but we shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. It created a vacuum, ISIS was formed.” (ISIS has existed since 2004.)FEB. 7 “And yet the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years.” (It was higher in the 1980s and '90s.)FEB. 7 “I saved more than $600 million. I got involved in negotiation on a fighter jet, the F-35.” (The Defense Department projected this price drop before Idiot took office.)FEB. 9 “Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave ‘service’ in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!” (It was part of Cuomo's first question.)FEB. 9 Sen. Richard Blumenthal “now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” (The Gorsuch comments were later corroborated.)FEB. 10 “I don’t know about it. I haven’t seen it. What report is that?” (Idiot knew about Flynn's actions for weeks.)FEB. 12 “Just leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest!” (The media did cover it.)FEB. 16 “We got 306 because people came out and voted like they've never seen before so that's the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan.” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all won bigger margins in the Electoral College.)FEB. 16 “That’s the other thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a massive problem with their computer system at the airports.” (Delta's problems happened two days later.)FEB. 16 “Walmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives.” (The jobs are a result of its investment plans announced in October 2016.)FEB. 16 “When WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.” (Not always. They have released classified information in the past.)FEB. 16 “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.” (The rollout was chaotic.)FEB. 16 “They’re giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the debates. Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates.” (It was widely covered.)FEB. 18 “And there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing.” (Refugees receive multiple background checks, taking up to two years.)FEB. 18 “You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” (Idiot implied there was a terror attack in Sweden, but there was no such attack.)FEB. 24 “By the way, you folks are in here — this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks.” (There was no evidence of long lines.)FEB. 24 “ICE came and endorsed me.” (Only its union did.)FEB. 24 “Obamacare covers very few people — and remember, deduct from the number all of the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken away from them — it was taken away from them.” (Obamacare increased coverage by a net of about 20 million.)FEB. 27 “Since Obamacare went into effect, nearly half of the insurers are stopped and have stopped from participating in the Obamacare exchanges.” (Many fewer pulled out.)FEB. 27 “On one plane, on a small order of one plane, I saved $725 million. And I would say I devoted about, if I added it up, all those calls, probably about an hour. So I think that might be my highest and best use.” (Much of the price cut was already projected.)FEB. 28 “And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.” (NATO countries agreed to meet defense spending requirements in 2014.)FEB. 28 “The E.P.A.’s regulators were putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands.” (There's no evidence that the Waters of the United States rule caused severe job losses.)FEB. 28 “We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials.” (They can't lobby their former agency but can still become lobbyists.)MARCH 3 “It is so pathetic that the Dems have still not approved my full Cabinet.” (Paperwork for the last two candidates was still not submitted to the Senate.)MARCH 4 “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Idiot Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)MARCH 4 “How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.)MARCH 7 “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” (113 of them were released by President George W. Bush.)MARCH 13 “I saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't I? Did I do a good job? More than $725 million on them.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Idiot.)MARCH 13 “First of all, it covers very few people.” (About 20 million people gained insurance under Obamacare.)MARCH 15 “On the airplanes, I saved $725 million. Probably took me a half an hour if you added up all of the times.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Idiot.)MARCH 17 “I was in Tennessee — I was just telling the folks — and half of the state has no insurance company, and the other half is going to lose the insurance company.” (There's at least one insurer in every Tennessee county.)MARCH 20 “With just one negotiation on one set of airplanes, I saved the taxpayers of our country over $700 million.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Idiot.)MARCH 21 “To save taxpayer dollars, I’ve already begun negotiating better contracts for the federal government — saving over $700 million on just one set of airplanes of which there are many sets.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Idiot.)MARCH 22 “I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems.” (Riots in Sweden broke out two days later and there were no deaths.)MARCH 22 “NATO, obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism. They fixed that.” (It has fought terrorism since the 1980s.)MARCH 22 “Well, now, if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong — in other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly and/or illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous numbers of people.” (There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud.)MARCH 29 “Remember when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after the election, because their coverage was so wrong. Now worse!” (It didn't apologize.)MARCH 31 “We have a lot of plants going up now in Michigan that were never going to be there if I — if I didn’t win this election, those plants would never even think about going back. They were gone.” (These investments were already planned.)APRIL 2 “And I was totally opposed to the war in the Middle East which I think finally has been proven, people tried very hard to say I wasn’t but you’ve seen that it is now improving.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.)APRIL 2 “Now, my last tweet — you know, the one that you are talking about, perhaps — was the one about being, in quotes, wiretapped, meaning surveilled. Guess what, it is turning out to be true.” (There is still no evidence.)APRIL 5 “You have many states coming up where they’re going to have no insurance company. O.K.? It’s already happened in Tennessee. It’s happening in Kentucky. Tennessee only has half coverage. Half the state is gone. They left.” (Every marketplace region in Tennessee had at least one insurer.)APRIL 6 “If you look at the kind of cost-cutting we’ve been able to achieve with the military and at the same time ordering vast amounts of equipment — saved hundreds of millions of dollars on airplanes, and really billions, because if you take that out over a period of years it’s many billions of dollars — I think we’ve had a tremendous success.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)APRIL 11 “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late. I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve.” (He knew Steve Bannon since 2011.)APRIL 12 “You can't do it faster, because they're obstructing. They're obstructionists. So I have people — hundreds of people that we're trying to get through. I mean you have — you see the backlog. We can't get them through.” (At this point, he had not nominated anyone for hundreds of positions.)APRIL 12 “The New York Times said the word wiretapped in the headline of the first edition. Then they took it out of there fast when they realized.” (There were separate headlines for print and web, but neither were altered.)APRIL 12 “The secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism.” (NATO has been engaged in counterterrorism efforts since the 1980s.)APRIL 12 “Mosul was supposed to last for a week and now they’ve been fighting it for many months and so many more people died.” (The campaign was expected to take months.)APRIL 16 “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!” (There's no evidence of paid protesters.)APRIL 18 “The fake media goes, ‘Idiot changed his stance on China.’ I haven’t changed my stance.” (He did.)APRIL 21 “On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.)APRIL 21 “When WikiLeaks came out … never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it.” (He criticized it as early as 2010.)APRIL 27 “I want to help our miners while the Democrats are blocking their healthcare.” (The bill to extend health benefits for certain coal miners was introduced by a Democrat and was co-sponsored by mostly Democrats.)APRIL 28 “The trade deficit with Mexico is close to $70 billion, even with Canada it’s $17 billion trade deficit with Canada.” (The U.S. had an $8.1 billion trade surplus, not deficit, with Canada in 2016.)APRIL 28 “She's running against someone who's going to raise your taxes to the sky, destroy your health care, and he's for open borders — lots of crime.” (Those are not Jon Ossoff's positions.)APRIL 28 “The F-35 fighter jet program — it was way over budget. I’ve saved $725 million plus, just by getting involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Idiot.)APRIL 29 “They're incompetent, dishonest people who after an election had to apologize because they covered it, us, me, but all of us, they covered it so badly that they felt they were forced to apologize because their predictions were so bad.” (The Times did not apologize.)APRIL 29 “As you know, I've been a big critic of China, and I've been talking about currency manipulation for a long time. But I have to tell you that during the election, number one, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)APRIL 29 “I've already saved more than $725 million on a simple order of F-35 planes. I got involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Idiot.)APRIL 29 “We're also getting NATO countries to finally step up and contribute their fair share. They've begun to increase their contributions by billions of dollars, but we are not going to be satisfied until everyone pays what they owe.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)APRIL 29 “When they talk about currency manipulation, and I did say I would call China, if they were, a currency manipulator, early in my tenure. And then I get there. Number one, they — as soon as I got elected, they stopped.” (China stopped in 2014.)APRIL 29 “I was negotiating to reduce the price of the big fighter jet contract, the F-35, which was totally out of control. I will save billions and billions and billions of dollars.” (Most of the cuts were planned before Idiot.)APRIL 29 “I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it.” (There's still no evidence Idiot's phones were tapped.)MAY 1 “Well, we are protecting pre-existing conditions. And it'll be every good — bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” (The bill weakens protections for people with pre-existing conditions.)MAY 1 “The F-35 fighter jet — I saved — I got involved in the negotiation. It's 2,500 jets. I negotiated for 90 planes, lot 10. I got $725 million off the price.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Idiot.)MAY 1 “First of all, since I started running, they haven't increased their — you know, they have not manipulated their currency. I think that was out of respect to me and the campaign.” (China stopped years ago.)MAY 2 “I love buying those planes at a reduced price. I have been really — I have cut billions — I have to tell you this, and they can check, right, Martha? I have cut billions and billions of dollars off plane contracts sitting here.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Idiot.)MAY 4 “Number two, they’re actually not a currency [manipulator]. You know, since I’ve been talking about currency manipulation with respect to them and other countries, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.)MAY 4 “We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world.” (We're not.)MAY 4 “Nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters.” (Polls show most Americans do care.)MAY 8 “You know we’ve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than we’re getting. All because of me.” (The deal was struck in 2014.)MAY 8 “But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high — highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.” (Colbert's “Late Show” debut had nearly two million more viewers.)MAY 8 “Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Idiot.” (Clapper only said he wasn't aware of an investigation.)MAY 12 “Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Idiot campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election.” (The F.B.I. was investigating before the election.)MAY 12 “When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” (Clapper said he wouldn't have been told of an investigation into collusion.)MAY 13 “I'm cutting the price of airplanes with Lockheed.” (The cost cuts were planned before he became president.)MAY 26 “Just arrived in Italy for the G7. Trip has been very successful. We made and saved the USA many billions of dollars and millions of jobs.” (He's referencing an arms deal that's not enacted and other apparent deals that weren't announced on the trip.)JUNE 1 “China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020.” (The agreement doesn’t allow or disallow building coal plants.)JUNE 1 “I’ve just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.” (Idiot’s figures are inflated and premature.)JUNE 4 “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” (The mayor was specifically talking about the enlarged police presence on the streets.)JUNE 5 “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.” (Idiot signed this version of the travel ban, not the Justice Department.)JUNE 21 “They all say it's 'nonbinding.' Like hell it's nonbinding.” (The Paris climate agreement is nonbinding — and Idiot said so in his speech announcing the withdrawal.)JUNE 21 “Right now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.” (We're not.)

"The operation Mr. Smith described is consistent with information that has been examined by U.S. investigators probing Russian interference in the elections.

Those investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence.

It isn’t clear who that intermediary might have been or whether Mr. Smith’s operation was the one allegedly under discussion by the Russian hackers. The reports were compiled during the same period when Mr. Smith’s group was operating, according to the officials. "

And now thanks to yet more ill advised social media use, multiple media outlets are again questioning trumps mental health and/or intellect and capabilities. So idiot instead of apologising or backtracking, gibbers on about North Korea.

I'm starting to think this is all just attention whoring on a never before seen scale. It would be interesting to see what a 48 hour lack of interest would result in. Probable results of a media blackout could be hilarious. This looks like an ego so fragile I wouldn't rule out starting a war just to force people to pretend he's actually still relevant at this point.

The WH is allegedly mulling more strikes in Syria and possibly attacks on Iran.

As I'm sure you recall, the last bombing of Syria and Afghanistan led to nearly orgasmic praise from the press. It was actually disgusting to watch.

Iran?

Jesus H Christ. It's like having monkeys specifically trained to brake hard on the freeway.

"I heard Obama was pro-Westphalia, so I'm, like, really really anti-Westphalia and everything that goes along with that -- which is really bad, by the way, so bad -- because I'm, you know, much smarter and more statesmanlike."

By way of example: Same thing is also happening with AHCA -- everyone's balking and passing the hot potato now that it looks like re-election is less important than not being stoned to death on public television for the deaths of millions. Trump goes, "Repeal it now!" And as near as I can tell there's a lot of sweaty foreheads and "Oh, gee, I dunno boss," in reply.

And now thanks to yet more ill advised social media use, multiple media outlets are again questioning trumps mental health and/or intellect and capabilities. So idiot instead of apologising or backtracking, gibbers on about North Korea.

I'm starting to think this is all just attention whoring on a never before seen scale. It would be interesting to see what a 48 hour lack of interest would result in. Probable results of a media blackout could be hilarious. This looks like an ego so fragile I wouldn't rule out starting a war just to force people to pretend he's actually still relevant at this point.

The best part about this administration by now is that it makes the violently insane people ditch their pet projects. :lulz:

If you can get Mattis and McMasters to say "no" to an excuse to march into Iran on a road of bones, you can do /anything/, as long as its the exact opposite of what you want most.

It was an insane plan. The essence of it was to start the war against Iran in Syria, fighting Iranian troops and Shiite militias (including Hezbollah) in the area.

Which totally wouldn't lead to the conflict engulfing Lebanon and Iraq, or drawing Russia into direct conflict against America, or causing the Syrian government to collapse, or reducing pressure on ISIS and the hardline rebel factions who would surge in the chaos. I can see why Mattis said "fuck no".

And now thanks to yet more ill advised social media use, multiple media outlets are again questioning trumps mental health and/or intellect and capabilities. So idiot instead of apologising or backtracking, gibbers on about North Korea.

I'm starting to think this is all just attention whoring on a never before seen scale. It would be interesting to see what a 48 hour lack of interest would result in. Probable results of a media blackout could be hilarious. This looks like an ego so fragile I wouldn't rule out starting a war just to force people to pretend he's actually still relevant at this point.

This is kinda brilliant

It appeals to me. To be frank I'm sick of the news being little more than idiot and brexit as it means I must be missing heaps of shady shit that's actually of consequence.

“In a nutshell: The Ninth Circuit will have to decide if it’s okay, under the due process clause of the US Constitution and the federal class-action rules, to do what the settlement did here: promise people you’re going to let them opt out of any settlement and then later renege on that promise. That’s the main issue. We also argue that class members should be able to see the terms of any settlement before they have to give up their claims forever.”

I saw a report he's working on a Trade War, which was opposed by almost all of his cabinet. It's probably FAKE NEWS though, since everyone in the cabinet is so honored and grateful to have the opportunity to to work for him. :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

I saw a report he's working on a Trade War, which was opposed by almost all of his cabinet. It's probably FAKE NEWS though, since everyone in the cabinet is so honored and grateful to have the opportunity to to work for him. :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

A 45% tariff on Chinese steel? It's insane. China's retaliation would bring Silicon Valley to its knees - and they'd do it, to show the costs of fucking them around. They'd make Apple squeal in agony, just to get them onside to oppose the tariffs.

I've been following this Trump tweet/CNN story, and it's getting pretty crazy.

What I don't understand is why Trump and his surrogates/supporters are so obsessed with CNN, instead of say WaPo or the NYT, whose original investigative reporting is far more damaging. The only reason I can think is that because CNN presents an easy target - a station that no-one is especially going to go out of their way to defend, which may open the doors to more restrictions on, or at the very least intimidating other, more robust press outlets.

I've been following this Trump tweet/CNN story, and it's getting pretty crazy.

What I don't understand is why Trump and his surrogates/supporters are so obsessed with CNN, instead of say WaPo or the NYT, whose original investigative reporting is far more damaging. The only reason I can think is that because CNN presents an easy target - a station that no-one is especially going to go out of their way to defend, which may open the doors to more restrictions on, or at the very least intimidating other, more robust press outlets.

Or he's just crazier than a shithouse rat.

He got lost walking 5 steps from his plane to his limo. The Columbian marching powder has eaten his brain.

With idiot you also have to acknowledge that his brain has a limited imagination and needs flashing pictures to work it. At this point I assume bannon has him watching TV 6+ hours a day in the comfy chair from clockwork orange.

Looks like Trump Jr just admitted to attempted collusion with the Russian government.

1. Trump Jr admits meeting with the Russian lawyer because she said she had information pertaining to Clinton.2. Trump Jr was told in an email that the information this lawyer had came from the Russian government.

Quote from: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.

The Russian lawyer was working on behalf of Emin Agalarov, a Russian-Azerbaijani businessman/singer and associate of Trump (Trump even appeared in one of his music videos). However, more important is his father, Aras Agalarov, who has acted as a go-between for Putin and Trump before now.

- Both believe Azeri business associate of TRUMP, Araz AGALAROV will know the details1. Speaking to a trusted compatriot in September 2016, two well-placed sources based in St Petersburg, one in the political/business elite and the other involved in the local services and tourist industry, commented on Republican US presidential candidate Donald prior activities in the city.

2. Both knew TRUMP had visited St Petersburg on several occasions in the past and had been interested in doing business deals there involving real estate. The local business/political elite figure reported that TRUMP had paid bribes there to further his interests but very discreetly and only through affiliated companies, making it very hard to prove. The local services industry source reported that TRUMP had participated in sex parties in the city too, but that all direct witnesses to this recently had been "silenced" i.e. bribed or coerced to disappear.

3. The two St Petersburg figures cited believed an Azeri business figure, Araz AGALAROV (with offices in Baku and London) had been closely involved with TRUMP in Russia and would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to there

Well that's irrefutable proof of Russian tampering in the election, surprised Jr admitted it. Even if it's not a smoking gun proving his dad knew about it, it verifies everything Comey said, and makes trumps attempt to shut down the investigation look far worse. Having been used to Berlusconi and years and years of scandal without anything happening, is there any hope this can start the impeachment process?

Not likely, unfortunately. I think Trump's congressional allies would need a lot more in the way of verification and proof before starting anything like that. And they'd probably want to wait for the Special Counsel to finish their investigation first.

I can think of at least several things with this that I'd want verification or clarification on to start impeachment proceedings, and that's as someone who wants to see Trump gone. Trump was present at the Trump Towers on the day this meeting took place. Was he present? Is Mr Goldstone's claim accurate, can it be linked to any known efforts to influence the election or key players associated with such attempts? Was Trump informed at any point before or after the meeting that an offer to help swing the election, from a purported agent of the Russian government, was made? At what point did Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort leave these talks? Were there any discussions regarding the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, and do these discussions constitute a violation of the Logan Act?

It's super fucking damning, from a political perspective, but it's still not enough legally.

What makes this particularly foul is that the prize for victory is President Pence.

It's assholes all the way down. Honestly at this point I'd prefer the buffoon who can't get anything done at all due to public outrage over any one of the assholes standing in line to pick up the pieces while all the idiots on the Left are taking a nap after a "job well done".

What makes this particularly foul is that the prize for victory is President Pence.

It's assholes all the way down. Honestly at this point I'd prefer the buffoon who can't get anything done at all due to public outrage over any one of the assholes standing in line to pick up the pieces while all the idiots on the Left are taking a nap after a "job well done".

Exactly this. Trump cannot stick to the script; Pence would be an abomination.

Unless Pence gets snared in the investigation somehow, President Pence is always a possibility. He's already laying the groundwork for an independent Presidential campaign - perhaps in 2020, if Trump gets taken down, but quite possibly 2024 as well. That's a done deal - he's already hobnobbing with wealthy donors and meeting with influential groups within the Republican Party.

I'm more worried what game Steve Bannon is playing. If Bannon is the source of some of these leaks, as I suspect he might be...beyond cutting off Trump from all advisers barring himself, I'm not sure what he thinks he is achieving. And that worries me.

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.

Peter W. Smith, the Republican operative who sought to obtain and publicize emails he thought were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, committed suicide days after he told a reporter about his efforts, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday night, citing a Minnesota state death record filed in Olmsted County, that Smith killed himself on May 14 days after he talked to the Wall Street Journal about his hunt for Clinton’s emails. That account was also included in a medical examiner’s report and a Rochester police report, according to the Tribune.

Smith left a statement police referred to as a suicide note, according to the report, in which he said there was “NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER” involved in his death.

The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and others on the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned.

The lobbyist, who denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies, accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr.; Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law; and Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign.

At this stage, I'm expecting idiot to die about halfway through the inevitable court cases. That some of this crap makes it to court is bound to happen and the trial will probably be longer than the investigations which are looking to go on to at least the end of the year.

Which is about as close as we will get to "justice".

In other news, idiots lawyer apologies for telling a pr goon to "fuck off" and various threats when advised that representing idiot may not be wise. I'm actually surprised about this one, I expected his LAWYERS to be halfway competent. This does not bode well for when he does end up in court.

I somehow missed this article about the Trump Crime Family when it first appeared.

“Trump Aides: Russia Flap Proves Don Jr. Is the ‘Fredo’ of the First Family”

As per the article, “Ever since the campaign, a popular, behind-his-back nickname for Trump Jr. among some in his father’s political inner circle has been “Fredo,” referring to Fredo Corleone, the insecure and weak failure of a son in The Godfather series who ends up causing major damage to the crime family and contributing little of value. This has been relayed to The Daily Beast in several stories by Team Trump veterans over the past several weeks.”

In other news, idiots lawyer apologies for telling a pr goon to "fuck off" and various threats when advised that representing idiot may not be wise. I'm actually surprised about this one, I expected his LAWYERS to be halfway competent. This does not bode well for when he does end up in court.

Nope, his lawyer is actually pretty bad. In fact, I think this provocation was staged - he can't get a security clearance and Trump is blaming him for not defending him sufficiently well on the Russia issue. He wants to walk, but he can't - so he's looking to get fired instead.

Kushner's lawyer also quit - apparently some conflict of interest with the Assistant Deputy AG. Also because he's guilty as fuck.

In other news, idiots lawyer apologies for telling a pr goon to "fuck off" and various threats when advised that representing idiot may not be wise. I'm actually surprised about this one, I expected his LAWYERS to be halfway competent. This does not bode well for when he does end up in court.

Nope, his lawyer is actually pretty bad. In fact, I think this provocation was staged - he can't get a security clearance and Trump is blaming him for not defending him sufficiently well on the Russia issue. He wants to walk, but he can't - so he's looking to get fired instead.

Kushner's lawyer also quit - apparently some conflict of interest with the Assistant Deputy AG. Also because he's guilty as fuck.

In other news, idiots lawyer apologies for telling a pr goon to "fuck off" and various threats when advised that representing idiot may not be wise. I'm actually surprised about this one, I expected his LAWYERS to be halfway competent. This does not bode well for when he does end up in court.

Nope, his lawyer is actually pretty bad. In fact, I think this provocation was staged - he can't get a security clearance and Trump is blaming him for not defending him sufficiently well on the Russia issue. He wants to walk, but he can't - so he's looking to get fired instead.

Kushner's lawyer also quit - apparently some conflict of interest with the Assistant Deputy AG. Also because he's guilty as fuck.

I've not actually bothered to look at any of the lawyers involved so far in any detail. The odds are exponentially increasing that a Saul Goodman or two is in the mix at this point. Which could lead to all kinds of fun. Are any of them in particular worth catching up on? From what you've said, I'd guess Kushners is for sure.

There's more developing on the Clinton info meeting too, looks like it was pretty close to a small conference.

And, as per the article: “Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.”

Kushners thrown up an 11 page statement written by lawyers explaining hedidntdonuffineverhonestguv. Sincerely unimpressed by the lawyer/s that have produced it. Very shoddy work. Long rambling explanations, parts bolder, telling them their conclusions, it's just a mess.

On the plus side, it's another thing in the pile of things said that can and will eventually be used against you in court.

There's an almost tragic element to this all round now. Idiot will be dead or too infirm to do fuck all by the time this crap is officially declassified. His kids will be elderly at best and subject to a new round of scorn. Any grandkids/that young kid gets to be a worldwide laughing stock. 3 Euros on the young kid changing his name.

Kushners thrown up an 11 page statement written by lawyers explaining hedidntdonuffineverhonestguv. Sincerely unimpressed by the lawyer/s that have produced it. Very shoddy work. Long rambling explanations, parts bolder, telling them their conclusions, it's just a mess.

On the plus side, it's another thing in the pile of things said that can and will eventually be used against you in court.

There's an almost tragic element to this all round now. Idiot will be dead or too infirm to do fuck all by the time this crap is officially declassified. His kids will be elderly at best and subject to a new round of scorn. Any grandkids/that young kid gets to be a worldwide laughing stock. 3 Euros on the young kid changing his name.

I'll see that against a top quality previously owned plastic spoon that he doesn't. The name Trump is now historic and hyper recognized. Shit he could grow up to be president himself one day on a "better than my dad" platform right around when I turn 70ish.

I'll probably lose the spoon on this bet, but Baron Trump is my favorite Trump. The only one I really have any sympathy for.

Can we take a moment to appreciate that amid all this clamor for his impeachment (okay, less than half the country technically supports impeachment, but to even have the word uttered out in the open has to tell you something), Donald Tiberius Trump has floated the idea of just... impeaching himself? I feel like we are not stopping long enough to bask in the awe of this moment. Maybe the endless clatter of shoes dropping has got us all wandering around in a daze, as shocked and deafened as Gene Simmons at an actual rock concert, but the headline "President Tormented by Scandal, Threats of Impeachment Deigns to Just Pardon Himself and Move On" should not be "just another Thursday." Not even in this universe where it turns out the dark energy pulling everything apart is actually a vast reservoir of naturally-occurring post-modernism.

The hilarious part is that even the experts -- real ones, not the kind who print a PhD from Kinko's and get a seven-figure job at Fox News to pinch interns' asses, broadcast a hurricane of hate to everyone in the country, and ruin anyone who tries to stop them -- even the experts are scratching their heads. The best they can offer is "It'll be interesting to see what the courts make of that, if he tries it." That's right. The law itself does not specifically prohibit such a thing. Why? Well, because back when they wrote the Constitution and for about 200 years after that, there was no need to. Obviously, an impeached president (or one facing imminent impeachment) could not just pardon himself and walk away unscathed. At no point did anyone think "what if there is someone so vile, he'd try to pardon himself?" Just like they didn't think "What if there were so many idiots in the country, that he might get away with it?"

That sound you hear is the sound of the great United States of America slipping below the "goes without saying" threshold. It's also the sound of a very tenacious evil literally slipping between the seams of this thing called "society" that we have built for ourselves. Well, that we live in, anyway. Like a thief into a tent. Trump has managed -- whether out of sheer stupidity and dumb luck, or by maniacal plotting, it doesn't really matter which -- to illuminate a glaring gap in the threads of our civilization. He may not even have to break any laws. HA!

Idiot delivered another campaign speech, this time to the National Scout Jamboree. He, of course, took the opportunity to brag about himself, shit on Obama and Clinton, repeatedly complain about "fake media", and "fake news", and talk about "killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that's really hurting us".

He even got in a quick jab about "loyalty". How could he resist? It's in their motto, ferchrissakes!

Full Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ge_HEeIuI

Transcript:

http://time.com/4872118/trump-boy-scout-jamboree-speech-transcript/

Quote

I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?(APPLAUSE)The fake media will say, "President Trump spoke" -- you know what is -- "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today." That's some -- that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.

Idiot delivered another campaign speech, this time to the National Scout Jamboree. He, of course, took the opportunity to brag about himself, shit on Obama and Clinton, repeatedly complain about "fake media", and "fake news", and talk about "killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that's really hurting us".

He even got in a quick jab about "loyalty". How could he resist? It's in their motto, ferchrissakes!

Full Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ge_HEeIuI

Transcript:

http://time.com/4872118/trump-boy-scout-jamboree-speech-transcript/

Quote

I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?(APPLAUSE)The fake media will say, "President Trump spoke" -- you know what is -- "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today." That's some -- that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.

Yeah, and he got the Boy Scouts to boo Obama, because that's how fragile his ego is. He can't manage simple graciousness, like, at all.

Idiot delivered another campaign speech, this time to the National Scout Jamboree. He, of course, took the opportunity to brag about himself, shit on Obama and Clinton, repeatedly complain about "fake media", and "fake news", and talk about "killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that's really hurting us".

He even got in a quick jab about "loyalty". How could he resist? It's in their motto, ferchrissakes!

Full Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ge_HEeIuI

Transcript:

http://time.com/4872118/trump-boy-scout-jamboree-speech-transcript/

Quote

I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?(APPLAUSE)The fake media will say, "President Trump spoke" -- you know what is -- "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today." That's some -- that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.

Yeah, and he got the Boy Scouts to boo Obama, because that's how fragile his ego is. He can't manage simple graciousness, like, at all.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

The crowd's eagerness to go along with it is probably the most disturbing part. Keep in mind these are the people who decided to stay after the changes in LGBT policy. I don't know how much it affected them nationwide, but according to a friend in my hometown who has kids in scouts, when the new policy was announced half the troop dropped out.

I'd like to find a video taken either of the crowd, or from inside the crowd to get a better gauge of reactions. Clearly, many felt Idiot's remarks were worth cheering, but I can see how those who felt differently might consider actively booing a guest speaker to be unscoutly, or something.

Here's a few seconds of the crowd as he walks out. Looks like most of the people who aren't flailing their arms in excitement are the ones holding cameras. We may have to wait until those people get home from the party to see that footage. Uploading a 40 minute speech eats up a lot of data, and the wi-fi there is probably shit to non-existant.

Idiot delivered another campaign speech, this time to the National Scout Jamboree. He, of course, took the opportunity to brag about himself, shit on Obama and Clinton, repeatedly complain about "fake media", and "fake news", and talk about "killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that's really hurting us".

He even got in a quick jab about "loyalty". How could he resist? It's in their motto, ferchrissakes!

Full Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ge_HEeIuI

Transcript:

http://time.com/4872118/trump-boy-scout-jamboree-speech-transcript/

Quote

I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?(APPLAUSE)The fake media will say, "President Trump spoke" -- you know what is -- "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today." That's some -- that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.

I don’t have the stomach for it, but my wife watched Trump’s entire speech. She told me it reminded her of a Hitler Youth Rally.

Idiot delivered another campaign speech, this time to the National Scout Jamboree. He, of course, took the opportunity to brag about himself, shit on Obama and Clinton, repeatedly complain about "fake media", and "fake news", and talk about "killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that's really hurting us".

He even got in a quick jab about "loyalty". How could he resist? It's in their motto, ferchrissakes!

Full Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ge_HEeIuI

Transcript:

http://time.com/4872118/trump-boy-scout-jamboree-speech-transcript/

Quote

I'm waving to people back there so small I can't even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?(APPLAUSE)The fake media will say, "President Trump spoke" -- you know what is -- "President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today." That's some -- that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.

I don’t have the stomach for it, but my wife watched Trump’s entire speech. She told me it reminded her of a Hitler Youth Rally.

A lot of people are making that comparison. Maybe more of a pre=Jugendbund, than full blown Hitlerjugend.

You get a better feel of the crowd with that last link I posted of the video from some kid's phone. You can really hear the cracking of the voices of the pubescent youths screaming maniacally for their fuhrer. It wasn't all shouting, though. There were times the crowd got so quiet you could hear a testicle drop.

Also, at about 11 minutes (on both videos, the phone video is about 10 seconds ahead of the full video), he tries to say "road to American success", but instead says "road to American sex". As you can imagine, there was snickering and murmuring. You can't hear that on the full video.

Ryan LizzaAnthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve BannonHe started by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. It escalated from there. (http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon)

Quote

On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me.

Quote

I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. “I’ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,” he said. “They won’t do it.” He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source.“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

Quote

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)

Mark this date: Donald Trump is now a lame-duck presidentBy Steven Pearlstein (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/28/mark-this-date-donald-trump-is-now-a-lame-duck-president/)

Quote

Remember this day, July 28, 2017: The day Donald Trump became a lame duck president. More significantly, the day the tea party revolution ended and Washington began the return to “regular order.”

The coup de grâce came at 1:30 a.m. on the Senate floor as John McCain became the third Republican to break ranks and defeat the third attempt to repeal Obamacare, which embodied the Democrats’ promise that all Americans could — and should — have health insurance at a price they could afford. It was, as tea party Republicans had warned, another expensive government entitlement that, once granted, could never be taken away. Now McCain had acknowledged that political reality.

Mark this date: Donald Trump is now a lame-duck presidentBy Steven Pearlstein (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/28/mark-this-date-donald-trump-is-now-a-lame-duck-president/)

Quote

Remember this day, July 28, 2017: The day Donald Trump became a lame duck president. More significantly, the day the tea party revolution ended and Washington began the return to “regular order.”

The coup de grâce came at 1:30 a.m. on the Senate floor as John McCain became the third Republican to break ranks and defeat the third attempt to repeal Obamacare, which embodied the Democrats’ promise that all Americans could — and should — have health insurance at a price they could afford. It was, as tea party Republicans had warned, another expensive government entitlement that, once granted, could never be taken away. Now McCain had acknowledged that political reality.